Eliza Roxcy Snow was one of the most celebrated Latter Day Saint women of the nineteenth century. A renowned poet, she chronicled history, celebrated nature and relationships, and expounded scripture and doctrine. Snow was married to Joseph Smith as a plural wife and was openly a plural wife of Brigham Young after Smith's death. Snow was the second general president of the Relief Society of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which she reestablished in Utah Territory in 1866. She was also the sister of Lorenzo Snow, the church's fifth president.
The Latter Day Saint movement is the collection of independent church groups that trace their origins to a Christian Restorationist movement founded by Joseph Smith in the late 1820s.
The status of women in Mormonism has been a source of public debate since before the death of Joseph Smith in 1844. Various denominations within the Latter Day Saint movement have taken different paths on the subject of women and their role in the church and in society. Views range from the full equal status and ordination of women to the priesthood, as practiced by the Community of Christ, to a patriarchal system practiced by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, to the ultra-patriarchal plural marriage system practiced by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and other Mormon fundamentalist groups.
The Woman's Exponent was a semi-official publication of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints that began in 1872. It published articles advocating for women's suffrage and plural marriage, in addition to poetry and other writings. Lula Greene Richards and Emmeline B. Wells were its editors until 1914, when the Exponent was dissolved. It was "the first long-lived feminist periodical in the western United States." While it had no direct successor, the Relief Society did launch its own magazine, the Relief Society Magazine, in 1915.
The Mormon corridor is the areas of western North America that were settled between 1850 and approximately 1890 by members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, who are commonly called "Mormons".
Emmeline Blanche Woodward Harris Whitney Wells was an American journalist, editor, poet, women's rights advocate, and diarist. She served as the fifth Relief Society General President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from 1910 until her death. She represented the state of Utah at both the National and American Women's Suffrage conventions and was president of the Utah Woman's Suffrage Association. She was the editor of the Woman's Exponent for 37 years. She was a plural wife to Newel K. Whitney, then Daniel H. Wells.
Elizabeth Wells Cannon, also referred to as Annie Wells Cannon, was a prominent women's suffragist in Utah who served in the Utah House of Representatives from 1913 to 1915 and again in 1921. She was also president of the Daughters of Utah Pioneers and a charter member of the Utah Red Cross.
Harriet Amelia Folsom Young was a pioneer and an early member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, as well as a cultural and political figure in Salt Lake City, Utah. An accomplished pianist and vocalist, Folsom was the fifty-first plural wife of Brigham Young, who served as the church's second president.
John Portineus Greene was an early leader in the Latter Day Saint movement.
Ruth Fox was a 19th-century English-born American women's rights activist in the Territory of Utah. Fox was a poet, hymn writer, and a leader of youth in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Louisa Lula Greene Richards was a poet and was the first female periodical editor in Utah Territory. Richards's work was published under a variety of names, including Louisa L. Greene, Louise L. Green, Lula Green, and Lula G. Richards. She was a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Joseph Stacy Murdock was an American colonizer, leader, and Latter-day Saint hymn writer. He wrote the words to "Come Listen to a Prophet's Voice."
Josephine Spencer was an American writer, journalist, and political activist from Utah. She was an important figure in the Mormon Home Literature movement of the late 19th century who published more than a hundred poems fifty short stories, and five serialized novels in both regional and national publications. Latter-day Saint literary critics Ardis E. Parshall and Michael Austin have called her "the most significant figure in Mormon letters that most people have never heard of."
Sarah Melissa Granger Kimball was a 19th-century Latter-day Saint advocate for women's rights and early leader in the Relief Society of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Kimball's involvement in the church led to the establishment of the women's Relief Society as well as participation in the national suffrage movement.
Women's suffrage in Utah was first granted in 1870, in the pre-federal period, decades before statehood. Among all U.S. states, only Wyoming granted suffrage to women earlier than Utah. Because Utah held two elections before Wyoming, Utah women were the first women to cast ballots in the United States after the start of the suffrage movement. However, in 1887 the Edmunds–Tucker Act was passed by Congress in an effort to curtail Mormon influence in the territorial government, disallowing the enfranchisement of the women residents within Utah Territory. Women regained the vote upon Utah statehood in 1896, when lawmakers included the right in the state constitution.
Emily Sophia Tanner Richards was a key figure in the founding of the Utah Woman's Suffrage Association.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was established in Japan in 1901 when the church's first missionaries arrived on August 12. Among them was Heber J. Grant, who was then a member of the Quorum of the Twelve and later became the church's 7th president. Horace S. Ensign, Louis A. Kelsch, and Alma O. Taylor accompanied Grant. The LDS Church's first baptism in Japan was on March 8, 1902, when Grant baptized Hajime Nakazawa, a former Kannushi. The Book of Mormon was translated three times. The first translation, which took over six years, was completed by Taylor in 1909. It was then recommended that the Book of Mormon be translated into bunshō, a more elegant literary style, which was done by Chōkō Ikuta in 1909, shortly before it was published and distributed. The third translation in 1957 was done by Tatsui Sato. In 1995, the Book of Mormon was translated again into a more colloquial style.
Julina Lambson Smith was a leader in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. From 1910 to 1921 she was a member of the General Presidency of the Relief Society. The second wife of Joseph F. Smith and the mother of Joseph Fielding Smith, she is the only woman in the history of the LDS Church to have been the wife of a President of the Church and the mother of another church president. She worked as a midwife in the Mormon community and delivered over 1,000 babies.
Since the beginning of political activity in Utah, Women were highly involved in their local political system. This is evident in the very fact that the Utah Constitution granted women the right to vote—20 years before the 19th Amendment was passed nationally. Despite high levels of female participation in politics and government, the issue of women's suffrage saw both support by Utah women and opposition by many other Utah women.
