Laura Ingalls Wilder started teaching in the town of De Smet, South Dakota. She taught in a one-room schoolhouse where she had to instruct students of various ages and grades.
Laura Ingalls Wilder's family started out in the Big Woods of Wisconsin, where Laura was born in 1867. They later moved to Kansas, then to Minnesota, and finally settled in De Smet, South Dakota.
Her daughter Rose influenced her to write them when she was sixty years old.
To enhance the dramatic effect, Laura (or her editor, her daughter Rose) said in Little Town on the Prairie that Laura got her teaching certificate on December 24th, 1882, when Laura was fifteen. Actually, her first teaching certificate, which can be seen in William Anderson's book Laura's Album, is dated December 8, 1883. She was actually sixteen - the legal age - when she started teaching.
Rose, her daughter, wrote a letter saying that she should so she doesn't forget her life on the prairie.
Laura Ingalls Wilder was 81 years old when the Great Depression began in 1929. Born in 1867, she experienced many changes throughout her lifetime, including the challenging economic times of the 1930s.
she told Laura to start writing books about her life
Laura Ingalls Wilder began writing her "Little House" series in her 60s, starting with "Little House in the Big Woods" published in 1932. The series is based on her experiences growing up on the American frontier in the late 19th century.
The Wilder's initially lived on Almanzo's claim north of De Smet. They also lived for a year with her in-laws in Spring Valley, Minnesota and in panhandle of Florida for about ten months. Then they returned to De Smet to live and work until they had saved enough money to make a new start somewhere else. They eventually settled in Mansfield, Missouri for the remainder of their lives.
Laura taught three terms of school, each one lasting two months, all of them in one-room schoolhouses near DeSmet. Laura taught school mainly to help her family keep her older sister Mary in the college for the blind in Iowa. She earned $40 for her first school, and $75 for her third and last. Laura might have continued to teach, but like many women in that time and place, she stopped working outside the home after getting married.
Nothing, really. Laura had worked little jobs in her teen and young adult years. But as far as big jobs, back in those times it was considered almost a sin for a woman to work (with the exception of teaching). Not until the early 1900's did alot of women start working more. Hope this answers your question!
The rights to the Little House books by Laura Ingalls Wilder are now owned by HarperCollins Publishers, who bought the copyright in 1971 when Rose Wilder Lane passed away without any children to inherit her estate.
Eileen Ryan played the part of Mrs. Kennedy in a 1974 episode of Little House on the Prairie: A New Beginning.