Emmeline Blanche Woodward Wells Biography

Emmeline Blanche Woodward Wells

Mormon community leader and suffragist. Wells was baptized into the Mormon Church in 1842, and after living for a few years at the Mormon settlement at Nauvoo, Ill., she journeyed to Utah with the main body of Mormons under the leadership of Brigham Young. In 1852, two years after her second husband's death, she became a plural wife of Daniel H. Wells. Emmeline Wells eventually became active in the Relief Society, the official adult women's body of the Mormon Church, and served as editor of the Women's Exponent, the society's magazine, from 1877 until 1914. A strong lobbyist for women's suffrage during the 1880s, Wells was at the forefront in founding (1889) the Woman Suffrage Association of Utah, which succeeded in gaining the vote for Utah women in 1896. Wells later served as president of the Relief Society (1910-1921), and she also published a collection of her verses, among other writings.