Emmeline B. Wells
Encyclopedia
Emmeline Blanche Woodward Harris Whitney Wells (February 29, 1828 – April 25, 1921) was an American journalist
, editor, poet, women's rights
advocate and diarist
. She served as the fifth general president of the Relief Society
of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) from 1910 until her death.
, the daughter of David and Deiadama Hare Woodward. Her father died when Emmeline was four years old. Precocious, energetic and intelligent, she graduated at age fourteen from the New Salem Academy. She taught school briefly before her first marriage at the age of fifteen.
Woodward joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons) in 1842. She married 16 year old James Harris, also a new member of the church, the following year. In 1844, the young couple, his parents, and other Latter Day Saints from their region migrated to the headquarters of the Church, Nauvoo, Illinois
. After the death of their infant son Eugene Henri, Harris left Nauvoo looking for work and never returned.
The young Emmeline Harris returned to teaching. Through his children in her school, she met and later married Newel K. Whitney
, a significantly older man, under the LDS doctrine of plural marriage
. Emmeline Whitney left Nauvoo in 1846, and traveled to Utah
with the extended Whitney family in 1848. At this time, she began maintaining a personal journal. Wells would continue writing in her diaries (forty-six journals are known) until 1920, shortly before her death. On the first page of volume 1, dated Friday, February 27, 1846, she recorded:
Whitney's death in 1850 left her with two young daughters, whom she supported by again teaching school in Salt Lake City. She remained primarily responsible for supporting herself and her children for the rest of her life.
Emmeline Whitney approached Daniel H. Wells
, a friend of her late husband and a prominent civic leader, about marriage. In 1852, she became Daniel Well's seventh wife, bearing him three daughters. Their early marriage was distant, as Daniel Wells was heavily involved in civic and church duties and had six other families. However, later in their lives, the couple became fond and loving companions.
Wells was the editor of Utah's Woman's Exponent
, a semi-monthly periodical established in 1872 for Mormon women. She also wrote numerous short stories and poems, most published. She later compiled her poetry into a single volume, Musings and Memories. In 1912 she became the first Utah woman to receive an honorary degree
, in literature, awarded her by Brigham Young University
.
A bust of Wells, inscribed "A Fine Soul Who Served Us", is found in the rotunda of the Utah State Capitol
. The bust was funded through the efforts of women's groups in Utah, including the feminist community, LDS women's groups, and women's groups from other church organizations. Wells is, to date, the only woman so honored.
Wells was active in the national women's suffrage movement, where she served as liaison between Mormon and non-Mormon women and fielded hostile criticism associated with the practice of polygamy. On the national level, she was closely associated with both Elizabeth Cady Stanton
and Susan B. Anthony
. For nearly thirty years she represented Utah women in the National Woman Suffrage Association and the National and International Councils of Women
. Beginning in 1879, with her attendance at a suffrage convention in Washington, D.C.
, Wells acted as a lobbyist for Utah interests. She met congressmen and presidents and addressed the issues of polygamy and women's suffrage from the Utah woman's point of view. Wells was also involved in the ultimately successful effort to restore suffrage to Utah women in the 1896 Utah state constitution
. In 1899, Wells was invited by the International Council of Women
to speak in London
as a representative of the United States.
In a much publicized election, the 66 year old Wells stood as one of several "at large" Republican
candidates for state senator
from Salt Lake County. Martha Hughes Cannon
, a physician and former employee at the Women's Exponent, was one of five Democrats
running for the office. On November 3, 1896, Cannon defeated the field, and became the first woman ever elected as a state senator in the United States.
Wells was appointed by Brigham Young
in 1876 to head a Church based grain-saving program, and managed the church wide program until the beginning of World War I
. In 1919, Wells received a personal visit in her Salt Lake City home from US President Woodrow Wilson
who presented her a commendation for selling the collected wheat to the government for the war effort.
Wells was called as the Relief Society organization's general president in 1910 at the age of 82. She served for eleven years, administering service issues related to the world war and dealing with issues relating to growth and administrative expansion. To her sorrow, the Relief Society Board declined to continue their support of the Women's Exponent, and the publication closed in 1914. Ill health led her to be released in 1921, at the age of 93. Wells died three weeks later and was buried at the Salt Lake City Cemetery
. Wells's first counselor Clarissa S. Williams
succeeded her as Relief Society general president.
Wells authored the text of the Latter-day Saint hymn
Our Mountain Home So Dear, which is hymn #33 in the LDS Church hymnal
.
Journalist
A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...
, editor, poet, women's rights
Women's suffrage
Women's suffrage or woman suffrage is the right of women to vote and to run for office. The expression is also used for the economic and political reform movement aimed at extending these rights to women and without any restrictions or qualifications such as property ownership, payment of tax, or...
advocate and diarist
Diary
A diary is a record with discrete entries arranged by date reporting on what has happened over the course of a day or other period. A personal diary may include a person's experiences, and/or thoughts or feelings, including comment on current events outside the writer's direct experience. Someone...
. She served as the fifth general president of the Relief Society
Relief Society
The Relief Society is a philanthropic and educational women's organization and an official auxiliary of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints . It was founded in 1842 in Nauvoo, Illinois, USA and has approximately 6 million members in over 170 countries and territories...
of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) from 1910 until her death.
Biography
Emmeline Blanche Woodward was born in 1828 in Petersham, MassachusettsPetersham, Massachusetts
Petersham is a town in Worcester County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 1,234 at the 2010 census. Petersham is home to a considerable amount of conservation land, including the Quabbin Reservation, Harvard Forest, the Swift River Reservation, and Federated Women's Club State...
, the daughter of David and Deiadama Hare Woodward. Her father died when Emmeline was four years old. Precocious, energetic and intelligent, she graduated at age fourteen from the New Salem Academy. She taught school briefly before her first marriage at the age of fifteen.
Woodward joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons) in 1842. She married 16 year old James Harris, also a new member of the church, the following year. In 1844, the young couple, his parents, and other Latter Day Saints from their region migrated to the headquarters of the Church, Nauvoo, Illinois
Nauvoo, Illinois
Nauvoo is a small city in Hancock County, Illinois, United States. Although the population was just 1,063 at the 2000 census, and despite being difficult to reach due to its location in a remote corner of Illinois, Nauvoo attracts large numbers of visitors for its historic importance and its...
. After the death of their infant son Eugene Henri, Harris left Nauvoo looking for work and never returned.
The young Emmeline Harris returned to teaching. Through his children in her school, she met and later married Newel K. Whitney
Newel K. Whitney
Newel Kimball Whitney was a prominent leader of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and an American businessman. He served as Bishop of Kirtland, Ohio, Far West, Missouri, and Nauvoo, Illinois. He also served as the second Presiding Bishop of the Church from 1847 until his death...
, a significantly older man, under the LDS doctrine of plural marriage
Plural marriage
Polygamy was taught by leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for more than half of the 19th century, and practiced publicly from 1852 to 1890.The Church's practice of polygamy has been highly controversial, both within...
. Emmeline Whitney left Nauvoo in 1846, and traveled to Utah
Utah
Utah is a state in the Western United States. It was the 45th state to join the Union, on January 4, 1896. Approximately 80% of Utah's 2,763,885 people live along the Wasatch Front, centering on Salt Lake City. This leaves vast expanses of the state nearly uninhabited, making the population the...
with the extended Whitney family in 1848. At this time, she began maintaining a personal journal. Wells would continue writing in her diaries (forty-six journals are known) until 1920, shortly before her death. On the first page of volume 1, dated Friday, February 27, 1846, she recorded:
Whitney's death in 1850 left her with two young daughters, whom she supported by again teaching school in Salt Lake City. She remained primarily responsible for supporting herself and her children for the rest of her life.
Emmeline Whitney approached Daniel H. Wells
Daniel H. Wells
Daniel Hanmer Wells was an apostle of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the third mayor of Salt Lake City, Utah Territory, United States....
, a friend of her late husband and a prominent civic leader, about marriage. In 1852, she became Daniel Well's seventh wife, bearing him three daughters. Their early marriage was distant, as Daniel Wells was heavily involved in civic and church duties and had six other families. However, later in their lives, the couple became fond and loving companions.
Wells was the editor of Utah's Woman's Exponent
Woman's Exponent
Woman's Exponent was a newspaper published from 1872 until 1914 in Salt Lake City. Its purposes were to uplift and strengthen women of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and to educate those not of the Mormon faith about the women of Mormonism...
, a semi-monthly periodical established in 1872 for Mormon women. She also wrote numerous short stories and poems, most published. She later compiled her poetry into a single volume, Musings and Memories. In 1912 she became the first Utah woman to receive an honorary degree
Honorary degree
An honorary degree or a degree honoris causa is an academic degree for which a university has waived the usual requirements, such as matriculation, residence, study, and the passing of examinations...
, in literature, awarded her by Brigham Young University
Brigham Young University
Brigham Young University is a private university located in Provo, Utah. It is owned and operated by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints , and is the United States' largest religious university and third-largest private university.Approximately 98% of the university's 34,000 students...
.
Utah State Capitol
The Utah State Capitol is the house of government for the U.S. state of Utah. The building houses the chambers of the Utah State Legislature, the offices of the Governor of Utah and Lieutenant Governor of Utah, along with other supporting offices for the Government of Utah...
. The bust was funded through the efforts of women's groups in Utah, including the feminist community, LDS women's groups, and women's groups from other church organizations. Wells is, to date, the only woman so honored.
Women's suffrage
Wells became an early advocate of women's rights, writing under the name "Blanche Beechwood" for the Woman's Exponent. "I believe in women, especially thinking women," she wrote. Wells was chief editor of the Women's Exponent newspaper for 37 years, beginning in 1877. In addition to reporting news of the Mormon Women's Relief Society, she used the publication to support woman suffrage and educational and economic opportunities for women. As editor, she became known for her executive talents and her superb memory.Wells was active in the national women's suffrage movement, where she served as liaison between Mormon and non-Mormon women and fielded hostile criticism associated with the practice of polygamy. On the national level, she was closely associated with both Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Elizabeth Cady Stanton was an American social activist, abolitionist, and leading figure of the early woman's movement...
and Susan B. Anthony
Susan B. Anthony
Susan Brownell Anthony was a prominent American civil rights leader who played a pivotal role in the 19th century women's rights movement to introduce women's suffrage into the United States. She was co-founder of the first Women's Temperance Movement with Elizabeth Cady Stanton as President...
. For nearly thirty years she represented Utah women in the National Woman Suffrage Association and the National and International Councils of Women
International Council of Women
The International Council of Women was the first women's organization to work across national boundaries for the common cause of advocating human rights for women. In March and April 1888, women leaders came together in Washington D.C...
. Beginning in 1879, with her attendance at a suffrage convention in Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
, Wells acted as a lobbyist for Utah interests. She met congressmen and presidents and addressed the issues of polygamy and women's suffrage from the Utah woman's point of view. Wells was also involved in the ultimately successful effort to restore suffrage to Utah women in the 1896 Utah state constitution
Utah Constitution
The Constitution of the State of Utah is the state constitution of Utah. It defines the basic form and operation of state government.- History :The Utah Constitution was drafted at a convention that opened on March 4, 1895 in Salt Lake City...
. In 1899, Wells was invited by the International Council of Women
International Council of Women
The International Council of Women was the first women's organization to work across national boundaries for the common cause of advocating human rights for women. In March and April 1888, women leaders came together in Washington D.C...
to speak in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
as a representative of the United States.
In a much publicized election, the 66 year old Wells stood as one of several "at large" Republican
Republican Party (United States)
The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...
candidates for state senator
Utah State Senate
The Utah State Senate is the upper house of the Utah State Legislature, the state legislature of the U.S. state of Utah. The Senate is composed of 29 elected members representing an equal number of constituent senatorial districts. Each senatorial district is composed of approximately 91,000 people...
from Salt Lake County. Martha Hughes Cannon
Martha Hughes Cannon
Martha Maria Hughes Cannon was a Welsh-born immigrant to the United States, a physician, Utah women's rights advocate and suffragist, and Utah state senator...
, a physician and former employee at the Women's Exponent, was one of five Democrats
Democratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...
running for the office. On November 3, 1896, Cannon defeated the field, and became the first woman ever elected as a state senator in the United States.
Church service
Wells was selected as general secretary for the Relief Society by President Eliza R. Snow and served for twenty-two years in the position under succeeding presidents. In her youth in Nauvoo, Wells briefly knew the LDS Prophet Joseph Smith, Jr.. In 1905, as Relief Society Secretary, she wrote the following to the young women of the Church:Wells was appointed by Brigham Young
Brigham Young
Brigham Young was an American leader in the Latter Day Saint movement and a settler of the Western United States. He was the President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from 1847 until his death in 1877, he founded Salt Lake City, and he served as the first governor of the Utah...
in 1876 to head a Church based grain-saving program, and managed the church wide program until the beginning of World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
. In 1919, Wells received a personal visit in her Salt Lake City home from US President Woodrow Wilson
Woodrow Wilson
Thomas Woodrow Wilson was the 28th President of the United States, from 1913 to 1921. A leader of the Progressive Movement, he served as President of Princeton University from 1902 to 1910, and then as the Governor of New Jersey from 1911 to 1913...
who presented her a commendation for selling the collected wheat to the government for the war effort.
Wells was called as the Relief Society organization's general president in 1910 at the age of 82. She served for eleven years, administering service issues related to the world war and dealing with issues relating to growth and administrative expansion. To her sorrow, the Relief Society Board declined to continue their support of the Women's Exponent, and the publication closed in 1914. Ill health led her to be released in 1921, at the age of 93. Wells died three weeks later and was buried at the Salt Lake City Cemetery
Salt Lake City Cemetery
thumb|The northern section of the cemetery at night, looking towards Salt Lake CityThe Salt Lake City Cemetery is in The Avenues neighborhood of Salt Lake City, Utah. Approximately 120,000 persons are buried in the cemetery. Many religious leaders and politicians, particularly many leaders of The...
. Wells's first counselor Clarissa S. Williams
Clarissa S. Williams
right|200px|thumb|Clarissa S. WilliamsClarissa Smith Williams was the sixth general president of the Relief Society of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from 1921 to 1928...
succeeded her as Relief Society general president.
Wells authored the text of the Latter-day Saint hymn
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints hymns
This article is about LDS church hymns in general, for the book, see Hymns of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Latter-day Saint hymns come from many sources, and there have been numerous hymn books printed by the Church since its organization in 1830...
Our Mountain Home So Dear, which is hymn #33 in the LDS Church hymnal
Hymns of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (1985 book)
Hymns of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the official hymn book of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints ....
.