When people talk about the 1970’s, they usually reference a time when everyone dressed like hippies, went to Woodstock, and lived at ashrams. I was a little girl in the 1970’s, yet I don’t remember any of that hippie-dippie stuff. Not really. I mean, my cousins grew their hair out long and played guitar, but that was about it.
What I remember is this: every girl came to school with a Holly Hobbie lunchbox, our family faithfully watched Little House on the Prairie (the original Michael Landon/Melissa Gilbert version), and my aunts made Sunbonnet Sue quilts. So clearly social media and Hollywood like to romanticize the hippie culture of the 1970’s, when in fact, there was a whole other pioneer revival going on.
So in today’s blog post, I’m going to address the question of Holly Hobbie and Little House on the Prairie. Was there a connection? And who the heck is Sunbonnet Sue?
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The Holly Hobbie lunchbox you see in the images above are available for sale in the Binkyboo9500 store on eBay. Click those links to see the lunchbox in real time, and to visit Staci’s store (respectively). And thank you, Staci, for generously sharing your images with me!
That lunchbox is one of my strongest memories from the 1970’s. Every girl wanted one. Most girls owned one, and the thermos too.
But why? Who was Holly Hobbie? And was she somehow connected with the Little House on the Prairie show from the 1970’s?
As it says in the image above, Denise Holly Hobbie is a real person. She’s a watercolor painter, illustrator, and author of children’s books. Her maiden name was Ulinskas, but she married her husband, Douglas Hobbie, in 1964, and that’s how she got her surname.
According to Wikipedia, “In the late 1960s, at the encouragement of her brother-in-law, Hobbie sold distinctive artwork of a cat-loving, rag dress-wearing little girl in a giant bonnet to American Greetings in Cleveland, Ohio. The artwork, based on Hobbie’s own children and with [the] rustic New England–style of a bygone era, became popular, and her originally nameless character (identified earlier as ‘blue girl’) became known as Holly Hobbie.”
From there, American Greetings ran with the creation of her fictionalized character, producing and marketing a number of items (including lunchboxes, greeting cards, wrapping paper, and much more), and eventually the rights to Holly Hobbie were sold to Cloudco Entertainment, and they own the rights today.
However Denise Holly Hobbie is also the author of the Toot and Puddle series of children’s books. On her Amazon page, you can see the projects she has created in more recent years. According to Wikipedia, she’s 82 years old today, and she lives in Massachusetts.
The Holly Hobbie sewing pattern that I own (pictured at the start of today’s blog post and above and below as well) shows the registered trademark for the Holly Hobbie merchandise. Look below and to the left of the green oval in the image above, and you’ll see that famous trademarked font for the words “Holly Hobbie.”
This Holly Hobbie pattern was produced by Simplicity, who I’m guessing had some sort of contract with American Greetings, as this pattern dates back to 1973. If you look closely at the very bottom of the pattern, you’ll see that copyright date.
When I was in high school, I made all the outfits, plus the doll (which is included), using this Simplicity 6006 Holly Hobbie pattern. I gave the doll and her wardrobe to my little sister, Sarah.
It’s a lovely pattern, and the doll is about 18 inches tall, so I think she would probably be able to wear modern American Girl doll clothes.
So now comes the big question… Was there a connection between the popularity of Little House on the Prairie and the Holly Hobbie craze?
Well, let’s learn the history behind the show. The original TV series, Little House on the Prairie, was based on a series of books by Laura Ingalls Wilder. According to the Library of Congress, “Laura Ingalls was born in Pepin, Wisconsin, a few years after the end of the Civil War” and she really did a lot of homesteading back in the pioneer days. Then, between 1932 and 1943, she wrote her famous Little House series of books, loosely based on her experiences as a little girl growing up in the homestead era.
The TV series, according to Wikipedia, began when, “with the encouragement of his wife and daughter, television producer and former NBC executive Ed Friendly acquired the film and television rights to Wilder’s novels from Roger Lea MacBride and engaged Blanche Hanalis to write the teleplay for a two-hour motion picture pilot.” It kicked off in March of 1974, with the pilot episode, and remained popular into the early 1980’s.
Young actress Melissa Gilbert starred as the author of the original books, Laura Ingalls. Later in life, the real Laura Ingalls married Almanzo Wilder, and some of the later productions of the Little House on the Prairie series included the stories of their courtship and marriage.
Most of the families I knew also watched variety shows on television, and some of my personal favorites were Donny & Marie (1976), Dolly! (1976), and Barbara Mandrell & the Mandrell Sisters (1980).
On their show, Donny and Marie Osmond used to sing an intro song called, “A Little Bit Country, A Little Bit Rock and Roll” which, in my humble opinion, really represented the way we lived in the 1970’s. It wasn’t like rock and roll didn’t exist. It absolutely did. Heck, I was a big fan of Queen, Creedence Clearwater Revival, and the band Heart back in the 1970’s.
But I also loved songs by John Denver and Kenny Rogers. But I digress…
In brief, Holly Hobbie was not associated with the 1970’s TV series, Little House on the Prairie. However the popularity of both the fictional character of Holly Hobbie and the famous TV show about the little girl, Laura Ingalls, who later became the author, Laura Ingalls Wilder, speaks volumes about what the real 1970’s was like.
It wasn’t all about beads and bell bottoms. Just like with fashion styles today, many different modes of fashion were in style. The hippie thing was just one of many.
And I haven’t even begun to mention Sunbonnet Sue! I’ve reached 1500 words in today’s blog post, so Sunbonnet Sue will have to wait for another day…
References:
“The Little House Series by Laura Ingalls Wilder.” Library of Congress, New Materials, Book Lists. 2012, https://www.loc.gov/nls/new-materials/book-lists/little-house-series-laura-ingalls-wilder/, Accessed 11 July 2026.
Wikipedia contributors. “Holly Hobbie.” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 9 Jul. 2026. Web. 11 Jul. 2026.
Wikipedia contributors. “Little House on the Prairie (1974 TV series).” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 11 Jul. 2026. Web. 11 Jul. 2026.
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