Emmeline B. Wells was always a woman of words. From her diaries to her journalism and editing career, she used her words often to advance the cause of suffrage.
Wells was born Emmeline Blanche Woodward in Petersham and was educated in Hardwick and New Braintree, eventually enrolling at New Salem Academy. After graduating from the academy, Wells earned a teaching certificate and began working as an educator in Orange.
“Emmeline Blanche Woodward was a New England girl with talents in writing and teaching who joined a religious movement that took her west, first to Illinois and Nebraska, then to Utah, where she became a notable editor, women’s leader and spokesperson for woman suffrage,” according to Cherry Silver, co-editor of the Emmeline B. Wells Diaries.
When Wells converted to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, she left New England with her first husband’s family for Nauvoo, Ill., known as the gathering place of the Saints. While in Illinois, Wells lost an infant son and her husband left for the sea, effectively abandoning her, according to Silver. Wells went back to teaching and eventually became a plural wife of Newell K. Whitney, Silver said.
In February 1846, when the church people were driven out of Illinois, Wells crossed Iowa with the Whitney family and stayed in Nebraska for two years until moving farther west in 1848. Silver said Wells settled in Salt Lake City, where she lived until her death in April 1921.
In 1850, she found herself a widow with two daughters. She married Daniel H. Wells in 1852 and had three more daughters. He was a businessman and church and civic leader, serving as head of the Nauvoo legion and mayor of Salt Lake City for 10 years, which gave her contact with prominent Utah citizens. Wells was invited into suffrage work as a result of her writing skills, keen intellect and sharp memory for people and details, Silver said.
In 1872, after having earned the right to vote in state and city elections in 1870, women in Salt Lake City established the Woman’s Exponent, a semi-monthly newspaper that carried local and national news. Wells soon began writing articles for the paper, focusing on social issues, often writing under the pseudonym of Blanche Beechwood.
“That pen name combines her middle name Blanche with the beech trees she loved around her Massachusetts settings in Franklin and Worcester counties,” Silver explained.
Another pen name Wells used was Aunt Em when she reminisced about good times in her childhood home and admiration for her mother, Diadama Hare Woodward, whom she labeled a “women’s rights woman,” Silver said.
Among her writings were many editorials defending the right to vote. But Wells’ newspaper work soon expanded beyond her writing. She began helping to publish the Woman’s Exponent in 1874, later serving as both associate editor and editor over 37 years.
The topic of women’s suffrage became prominent in Utah when the Edmund-Tucker Act of 1887 passed, taking away the right to vote for all women as well as men who would not renounce their religious belief in plural marriage. In 1895, suffrage was finally guaranteed under the state’s constitution, Silver said.
Wells’ work in Utah was extensive and included writing the constitution and bylaws for the Utah Woman Suffrage Association and serving as its president in October 1893. After suffrage passed, the Utah Woman Suffrage Association supported the national effort and encouraged women to run for office. Those running for office included Wells, who was nominated for state representative but withdrew in November 1895 after a judge ruled offices would not be open to women until the constitution was officially ratified in 1895. She ran again in 1896, but her party’s candidates were all defeated.
“Emmeline spent six years organizing and bolstering suffrage associations in individual towns and counties throughout Utah,” Silver said. “She was on the road by train and wagon nearly every week when weather permitted.”
Wells traveled from town to town, from one church meetinghouse to another, sat in homes, talked with women on trains and trolleys, lobbied the men in power and organized constantly, Silver continued.
Nationally, Wells exchanged ideas with other prominent women’s rights papers, including the Woman’s Journal, edited by Lucy Stone and Henry Blackwell. She corresponded with and assisted Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton in their drives for a national suffrage amendment. According to Silver, Wells also spoke directly to President Rutherford B. Hayes on suffrage issues, and later met with Presidents Ulysses S. Grant, James A. Garfield, William McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson.
When the 19th Amendment was finally passed, Wells posed with other suffragists for photos.
“One can say that, although Wells’ consciousness of suffrage arose when she was in her 40s, living in Utah, she continually drew on her Massachusetts background and nurtured relationships with suffrage leaders in the East and Northeast,” Silver said.
In 1928, the centenary of her birth, a statue of Wells carved by Cyrus Dallin was placed in the rotunda of the Utah State Capitol with the inscription, “A Fine Soul Who Served Us,” Silver said.
“Emmeline’s picture and story are key parts of the Church History Museum display on suffrage,” Silver said. “Wells is one of the few women they have featured.”
Wells kept diaries of her life from 1844 to 1874. Her first contained a paragraph from 1844 saying that she left Massachusetts in April. She made a few entries in 1845 in Nauvoo, Ill., and in 1846 while traveling across Iowa.
Aside from a few genealogical notations written in the 1860s in the same little book, there are no diaries still in existence from that period until August 1874. There are 47 volumes of diaries altogether, the last one written in 1920. By 1817, Wells’ eyesight had faded and her daughters wrote entries for her, Silver explained.
Digitized versions of Wells’ diaries can be found at bit.ly/3eXcNhS. Additionally, diary transcripts with introductions and notes are available on The Church Historian’s Press website at churchhistorianspress.org.