The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints began formally commissioning women to preach the restored gospel and bring souls to Jesus Christ around the turn of the twentieth century. The journals featured in this digital publication document the day-to-day experiences of some of the church’s earliest full-time women missionaries, whose pioneering work left an enduring legacy of service that remains vital to the church’s missionary efforts into the twenty-first century.

Isabelle Maria Harris spent the summer of 1883 in the Utah Territorial Penitentiary, imprisoned for contempt of court after refusing to answer a grand jury’s questions concerning her former husband’s practice of plural marriage. The journal she kept there offers an intimate look at nineteenth-century women’s prison life and the struggle of an ordinary Latter-day Saint who found herself at the center of a political controversy.  

 

The diaries of Emmeline B. Wells provide a window into the life of one of the most influential Latter-day Saint women in the mid-nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In the diaries she is both historymaker, as she meets with presidents and works with national suffrage leaders, and historian, as she documents noteworthy events, daily interactions with her family and members of her community, and her adversities and faith.

Eliza R. Snow, second general president of the Relief Society of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, was a prolific speaker and the most influential Latter-day Saint woman of her time. She taught religious doctrine, emphasized practical principles, shared her political opinions, and conveyed love and encouragement for church members in nearly twelve hundred discourses given from 1840 to 1887 in western Illinois and throughout Utah and Idaho territories. 

George F. Richards was a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles for forty-four years. His life bridged the pioneer era and modern era of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Richards’s journals, consisting of twenty-three physical volumes, chronicle his eventful life and provide unprecedented access to a trove of information about Richards and the church. 

George Q. Cannon was a member of the First Presidency and an apostle in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for a combined forty-one years. His journal covering 1855 through 1901 offers a rare glimpse into the inner workings of church leadership during a time of rapid change for the church. Read his personal journal online, now published for the first time.

This significant collection shines a spotlight on the preaching and teaching of Latter-day Saint women past and present. At the Pulpit presents fifty-four carefully selected discourses given by Latter-day Saint women from 1831 to 2016.

Learn about the founding of the Relief Society and the devotion, contributions, challenges, and teachings of Latter-day Saint women in the nineteenth century. View rare photos, read historic documents, and purchase this volume of Latter-day Saint women’s history. 

The Joseph Smith Papers was called “the most significant historical project of our generation” by Elder Marlin K. Jensen, former historian and recorder for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. View, search, and study the complete collection of Joseph Smith documents. Read project updates and purchase the volumes.