ªPARA ₧PAR@ ` ÄTEXT ` ÇWells, Emmeline Blanche Woodward1828╨1921religious leader and feministBorn in Petersham, Massachusetts, on February 29, 1828, Emmeline Woodward attended schools in her native town and in nearby New Salem. In 1842 she followed her widowed mother in converting to Mormonism. She began teaching school in 1843, but in 1844 she moved with her first husband to the Mormon settlement of Nauvoo, Illinois. Her husband deserted her the next year, and in February 1845 she became a plural wife of Newel K. Whitney, presiding bishop of the Mormon group, in a ceremony performed by Brigham Young. She accompanied the main Mormon group west to ╥Deseret╙ (Utah) in 1846╨1848. In October 1852, two years after Bishop Whitney╒s death, she married Daniel H. Wells, a high Mormon officer; she was his seventh wife. After a decade devoted to home cares she began involving herself in community and church affairs. She became active in the work of the influential Relief Society and in 1873 began contributing to the society╒s bimonthly Woman╒s Exponent, of which she became associate editor in 1875 and editor in 1877. In 1874 Wells was elected a vice-president of the National Woman Suffrage Association. In 1878 she was proposed for the office of treasurer of Salt Lake City but was barred by territorial law from running for the office. In the mid-1880s, when Congress threatened to repeal the Utah woman suffrage law that had been enacted by the territorial legislature in 1870, she turned the Woman╒s Exponent into a powerful voice in defense of women. She spent several months in 1885 and 1886 personally lobbying in Washington, D.C. Her campaign failed, however, for in 1887 woman suffrage was repealed. In January 1889 she led in founding the Woman Suffrage Association of Utah and through it launched a campaign that succeeded in restoring the vote to Utah women in the new state constitution that went into effect in 1896. In 1892 she became general secretary and in 1910 president of the Relief Society. She was a member of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, of the National Council of Women, and of the International Council of Women; she was secretary of the Deseret Hospital Association and the founder in 1891 of the Utah Women╒s Press Club. In 1893 Wells edited Charities and Philanthropies: Woman╒s Work in Utah as part of Utah╒s contribution to the World╒s Columbian Exposition in Chicago, and in 1896 she published Musings and Memories, a collection of her verses. She was the author of the words of the popular Mormon hymn ╥Our Mountain Home So Dear.╙ She continued to edit the Woman╒s Exponent until 1914, when it was superseded by the Relief Society Magazine. In her later years she was a revered figure among Mormons and widely respected nationally. She was chosen for the honor of unveiling the famous seagull monument in Salt Lake City in 1912. She died in Salt Lake City on April 25, 1921. εstyl ` ! ¬ ! 5¬ + 5¬ J !I ) 5¬ * !I !I !I [ 5¬ \ !I ┘ !I Θ !I ▓ 5¬ │ !I τ 5¬ Φ !I ² !I / !I Ö !I ¡ !I
