On TV, the Ingalls didn’t stoically survive calamity after calamity. They thrived. They prospered, both emotionally and financially. It was the narrative grafting of the postwar prosperity gospel onto late nineteenth-century frontier capitalism. Ronald Reagan reportedly cried while watching it.125 Viewership peaked during the 1980–81 season, at an average of over 17 million weekly viewers, and the show of course helped to sell more books.
