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Laura Ingalls Wilder Teaching Career
Laura Ingalls Wilder taught three terms of school in Kingsbury County, South Dakota as a teenager before marrying Almanzo Wilder on August 25, 1888 at the age of 18.

Age At Time of First Teaching Certification
In her novel Little Town on the Prairie, her character Laura describes receiving a teaching certificate at the age of 15 years, 10 months. On page xxx of Little Town on the Prairie, a reproduction of her teaching certificate shows the date of the certificate as December 24, 1882. In her unpublished work,Prairie Girl, a less fictionalized story of her life, she again states she received a certificate at the age of 15. Prairie Girl does not include a reproduction of her teaching certificate.

In both works, she states this was less than the minimum age required by law in Dakota Territory at the time, which she gives as 16.

Recent research, along with her actual teaching certificate, indicate she received her teaching certificate nearly a year later on October 10, 1883. Laura was 16 years old at the time. However, she was still legally too young to have received a certificate. The minimum age, set by the Dakota Territory legislature in early 1883, was eighteen. Prior to 1883, there was no minimum age to receive a teaching certificate in Dakota Territory.