Church Releases Discourses of Eliza R. Snow Online

The complete discourses of Eliza R. Snow, a prominent pioneer and women’s leader in the history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, are being published online. The documents are posted on a new website, “The Discourses of Eliza R. Snow.” The content is available to the public at no cost. The Church Historian’s Press project marks the first time Snow’s sermons have been collected in a single publication.

“Eliza R. Snow is among the most well-known Latter-day Saint women in the 19th century,” said Jenny Reeder, the Church’s lead historian on the project.

The discourses have been gathered from Snow’s personal journals and more than a thousand organizational minute books and contemporary newspapers, including Woman’s Exponent, Deseret News and Millennial Star. The discourses — still quite relevant today — will be published in batches on the site over the next several years. Fifty sermons are now available.

Eliza Roxcy Snow became the second general president of the Church’s Relief Society organization on July 17, 1880, and served in that calling until she died in 1887. She was a prolific speaker, delivering nearly 1,200 sermons from 1840 to 1887 in Illinois and throughout the Utah and Idaho territories.

“She traveled to nearly every settlement in the Utah territory to teach women, young women, and children, as well as men and young men and boys, about the Restoration, the plan of salvation, the responsibilities of the Saints, and the role of women in building the Kingdom of God,” said Reeder. “Eliza was a personal witness to events in the Restoration.”

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