Photos





1842. Emma Smith became the first president of the Relief Society around the time she posed for this portrait. Portrait by David Rogers. (Courtesy Community of Christ Library-Archives, Independence, MO.)

Emma Hale Smith

Circa 1870. Lucy Meserve Smith wrote in 1889 a reminiscence describing her 1850s Relief Society work in Provo, Utah. Photograph likely by Edward Martin. (Church History Library, Salt Lake City.)

Lucy Meserve Smith

Circa 1901. Priscilla Evans began keeping the minute book for one of the districts in the newly established Spanish Fork Relief Society (1857). Photograph by George Edward Anderson. (Courtesy L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT.)

Thomas D. Evans and Priscilla Merriman Evans

1866. In 1867 church president Brigham Young called for the reestablishment of the Relief Society in local wards, later appointing his plural wife Eliza R. Snow to oversee that effort. Photograph by the studio of Savage and Ottinger. (Church History Library, Salt Lake City.)

Brigham Young

1866. Celebrated poet Eliza R. Snow posed for this photo two years before her husband, Brigham Young, commissioned her to assist in organizing local branches of the Relief Society. Photograph by the studio of Savage and Ottinger. (Church History Library, Salt Lake City.)

Eliza R. Snow

Circa 1872. Top row, left to right: Emmeline B. Wells, assistant secretary; Elizabeth H. Goddard, secretary; Mary W. Musser, treasurer. Bottom row: Margaret T. Mitchell, second counselor; Rachel Ivins Grant, president; Bathsheba W. Smith, first counselor. Photograph by Charles R. Savage studio. (Church History Library, Salt Lake City.)

Salt Lake City Thirteenth Ward Relief Society Presidency

Circa 1885. While serving as president of the Salt Lake City Fourteenth Ward Relief Society, and at Brigham Young’s urging, Mary Isabella Horne called together a dozen presidents of local ward Relief Societies to form a Ladies’ Cooperative Retrenchment Society. Photograph by Charles R. Savage. (Church History Library, Salt Lake City.)

Mary Isabella Hales Horne

Aurelia Spencer Rogers (rear left) first expressed the idea of establishing a church organization for children. She is seen here with (clockwise from Rogers) May Anderson, Josephine R. West, Louie B. Felt, and Lillie T. Freeze. (Courtesy International Society Daughters of Utah Pioneers, Salt Lake City.)

Aurelia Spencer Rogers with Primary General Board

Jane Blood served as Relief Society teacher, counselor, and treasurer and as Primary president in Kaysville, Utah. Her diary shows how domestic and church activities were interwoven in her daily life. (Courtesy International Society Daughters of Utah Pioneers, Salt Lake City.)

Jane Wilkie Hooper Blood

Circa 1889. Widowed at the age of thirty-six, Belinda Pratt earned a living taking in boarders and teaching school. Her diary made frequent reference to the developing Relief Society organization. Photograph by Fox and Symons. (Church History Library, Salt Lake City.)

Belinda Marden Pratt

Sarah Kimball was a prominent presence in Relief Society from its inception in Nauvoo until after its Jubilee celebration. (Church History Library, Salt Lake City.)

Sarah Melissa Granger Kimball

Circa 1882–1884. Front row, left to right: Jane S. Richards, Emmeline B. Wells. Second row: Phebe Woodruff, Mary Isabella Horne, Eliza R. Snow, Zina D. H. Young, Nancy M. J. Hyde. Back row: Dr. Ellis R. Shipp, Bathsheba W. Smith, Elizabeth A. Howard, Dr. Romania B. Pratt. Photograph by Charles R. Savage. (Church History Library, Salt Lake City.)

Deseret Hospital Board of Directors

Trained and set apart as a midwife, Emma Liljenquist tended to numerous sick patients and estimated she had delivered over a thousand babies in Hyrum, Utah. (Courtesy International Society Daughters of Utah Pioneers, Salt Lake City.)

Emma Anderson Liljenquist

Circa 1885. Jane and Franklin Richards were strong proponents of both women’s rights and the Relief Society organization. Photograph by A. J. Hoffman & Co. (Church History Library, Salt Lake City.)

Jane Snyder Richards and Franklin D. Richards

Jane Walton and her husband, Charles, were members of the harrowing Hole-in-the-Rock expedition in southeastern Utah. She was Relief Society president of the San Juan Stake. (Courtesy Mike King, via commons.wikimedia.org.)

Jane McKechnie Walton

This mother and daughter are photographed here circa 1880–1890, in the approximate time period that Zina Young became general president of the Relief Society. (Church History Library, Salt Lake City.)

Zina Diantha Huntington Young and Daughter Zina Presendia Young Card





Circa 1885–1886. The founding meeting of the Female Relief Society of Nauvoo took place March 17, 1842, on the second floor of this dry goods store. Photograph taken or obtained by Brigham H. Roberts. (Church History Library, Salt Lake City.)

Joseph Smith’s Red Brick Store

Construction of this first Relief Society hall was already under way when President Sarah M. Kimball reported on the labors of her ward society’s first year at the close of 1868. The photograph comes from Emmeline B. Wells, ed., <i>Charities and Philanthropies: Woman’s Work in Utah</i> (Salt Lake City: George Q. Cannon and Sons, 1893), copy at Church History Library, Salt Lake City.

Salt Lake City Fifteenth Ward Relief Society Hall





This cross-stitch by Ann Eckford circa 1846 celebrates the completed Nauvoo temple. (Church History Museum, Salt Lake City.)

Nauvoo Temple Sampler

The Fourteenth Ward Relief Society left a tangible record of its members in an album quilt produced in 1857. (Courtesy Carol H. Nielson.)

Salt Lake City Fourteenth Ward Album Quilt

The Central Board of the Relief Society rode in carriages behind this white silk banner for the Jubilee Pioneer Day celebration in Salt Lake City in 1880. (Church History Museum, Salt Lake City.)

Relief Society Banner





This substantial volume contains the minutes of the Female Relief Society of Nauvoo from its founding on March 17, 1842, through its final meeting on March 16, 1844. (Church History Library, Salt Lake City.)

Nauvoo Relief Society Minute Book

The Nauvoo Relief Society met four times in 1844, twice on March 9 and twice on March 16. (Church History Library, Salt Lake City. Photograph by Welden C. Andersen.)

Meeting Minutes, March 9, 1844

One thousand Nauvoo Relief Society members signed a petition requesting that Illinois governor Thomas Carlin not extradite Joseph Smith to Missouri for trial. (Church History Library, Salt Lake City.)

Petition to Governor Thomas Carlin, circa July 22, 1842

Eliza Snow’s best-known hymn text, later titled “O My Father,” was first published in the church newspaper <i>Times and Seasons.</i> (Church History Library, Salt Lake City.)

Eliza R. Snow Poem, October 1845