Personal Journals and Narratives of Early Latter-day Saint Women

How women's diaries and written accounts reveal the spiritual lives, hardships, and agency of early Mormon women from the 1830s onward.

By Garret Merkley · Explainer · Jun 6, 2026

Branched from The Role of Spiritual Gifts and Prophecy Among Early Latter-day Saint Women

Quick take

Early LDS women kept detailed journals documenting their spiritual experiences, community roles, and daily struggles—often the only record of their lives.
These narratives show women exercising prophecy, healing, and leadership within a patriarchal structure, claiming spiritual authority in their own voices.
Journals survived partly by chance; many were lost, hidden, or discovered decades later, making them fragile but invaluable historical sources.
Reading these accounts challenges the assumption that early Mormon women were passive, revealing instead their theological reasoning and moral agency.

Personal journals and narratives written by early Latter-day Saint women—primarily from the 1830s through the late 1800s—are first-person records of spiritual experience, daily life, and community participation. Unlike official church histories written by male leaders, these diaries capture women's own interpretations of their faith, their struggles with poverty and displacement, their exercise of spiritual gifts, and their relationships within families and the church. They are among the most direct evidence we have of how early Mormon women understood their place in a new religious movement.

What These Journals Contain

Early LDS women's journals typically record a mix of domestic detail, theological reflection, and spiritual encounter. A woman might describe preparing food for a church gathering, then write about a vision she received, then note the birth of a child or the death of a neighbor. Many journals include accounts of receiving spiritual gifts—healing the sick, speaking in tongues, or prophesying—often performed in small group settings or within the home. Others document the trauma of forced migration (from Ohio to Missouri to Illinois to Utah), the loss of property, separation from family members, and the physical toll of frontier life. Some women recorded their conversations with church leaders, their doubts, their prayers, and their attempts to reconcile doctrine with experience.

The tone and detail vary widely. Some journals are sparse and formal; others are intimate and raw. A few women, like Eliza R. Snow and Patty Bartlett Sessions, were prolific and reflective. Many women wrote only sporadically, in whatever time and space they could find. Some journals were meant to be private; others were copied and shared among family or church members. This variety makes each account unique and irreplaceable.

How Women Claimed Spiritual Authority Through Writing

By writing down their spiritual experiences, early LDS women created a permanent record of their own authority and agency. In a church structure where formal priesthood and public preaching were male-only roles, women's journals became a space where they could document and validate their own spiritual work. When a woman wrote that she healed someone through faith and prayer, or that she received a revelation about a family matter, or that she spoke in tongues during a meeting, she was creating evidence of her direct relationship with God—not mediated through male leadership. These accounts were often read aloud to family or small gatherings, giving them a semi-public life and allowing other women to witness and affirm each other's spiritual experiences.

Some women explicitly reflected on the limits placed on them. They noted when they were told not to speak publicly, or when their spiritual gifts were questioned or discouraged. Yet they continued to record their experiences, suggesting a quiet insistence on their own spiritual legitimacy. A few women, like Eliza R. Snow, used their writing to articulate a theology of female spirituality—arguing that women's roles as mothers and healers were sacred callings, not secondary to priesthood authority.

Survival, Loss, and Discovery

Many early LDS women's journals were lost to time, fire, flood, or deliberate destruction. Others survived by accident—tucked away in a trunk, copied by a descendant, or preserved in a church or family archive. The journals that survived are thus not a complete or representative sample; they skew toward women from more literate, more settled communities and women whose families valued record-keeping. Journals by enslaved women, Indigenous women, or poor women are almost entirely absent from the historical record, even though these women were part of early LDS communities. This gap is crucial to acknowledge: the journals we have tell us much about some women's experiences, but they cannot tell us about all women.

Many journals were not widely known until the 20th century, when historians and genealogists began seeking them out. Some were discovered in church archives; others in university libraries or private collections. A few remained in family hands for generations before being transcribed or published. This delayed discovery means that early LDS women's voices have only recently become central to the study of Mormon history—a shift that has reshaped how scholars understand the movement's early decades.

Why These Journals Matter

Early LDS women's journals matter because they are rare evidence of how ordinary women experienced and understood a major religious movement. Official church records, written by male leaders, emphasize doctrine, organization, and public events. Journals fill in what is missing: the emotional reality of conversion, the concrete work of building community, the cost of migration and poverty, the negotiation of authority within families, and the lived practice of spiritual gifts. They show that early Mormon women were not passive recipients of doctrine but active theologians, healers, and leaders who shaped the movement from within. They also reveal the tensions and contradictions within early Mormonism—between egalitarian ideals and hierarchical practice, between women's spiritual authority and their institutional exclusion, between faith and doubt. For historians, these journals are primary sources of immense value. For descendants and members of the LDS church today, they offer models of female spirituality and agency from the tradition's earliest years.

Key Collections and Notable Journals

Eliza R. Snow's journals and poetry—among the most extensive and widely published records of an early LDS woman.
Patty Bartlett Sessions' midwifery and spiritual journals—documenting her work as a healer and her theological reflections.
The Latter-day Saint Women's Collection at Brigham Young University—houses dozens of transcribed journals and oral histories.
The Church History Library (Salt Lake City)—holds original journals and copies; some are now digitized and available online.
Published collections like 'Women's Voices: An Untold History of the Latter-day Saints' and 'The Essential Eliza R. Snow'—make key journals accessible to general readers.

How literate were early LDS women, and could most of them write?

Literacy rates varied by region and decade. By the 1830s, literacy among white American women was rising but far from universal. Many early LDS women could read but not write fluently. Some journals show uneven spelling and grammar, suggesting the writer was self-taught or writing in haste. Poorer women and women of color were less likely to be literate and even less likely to leave written records. The journals we have come disproportionately from women with some education and leisure time—a bias we must keep in mind.

Did church leaders encourage women to keep journals?

Not formally or uniformly. The church did not issue an official directive for women to journal. However, keeping journals was part of a broader Protestant and American cultural practice, and some church leaders (particularly Joseph Smith and Brigham Young) valued record-keeping. Some women may have been encouraged by husbands or family members. Others simply chose to write, seeing it as a way to preserve their own history and spiritual growth. The act was often private and personal, not institutional.

What can we learn from journals that official church histories don't tell us?

Journals reveal the human texture of early Mormonism: the fear and excitement of conversion, the grief of losing homes and possessions, the friction between spouses over doctrine, the joy and exhaustion of community-building, and the complexity of women's spiritual lives. They show that women exercised authority and spiritual gifts in ways that official records downplayed or omitted. They also document dissent, doubt, and criticism—women's honest struggles with faith. Official histories tend to present a linear narrative of growth and triumph; journals show the messiness, suffering, and moral ambiguity of lived experience.

Are these journals still being discovered?

Yes, though less frequently than in past decades. Digitization projects and genealogy websites have made it easier to locate and share journals. Some families still hold unpublished journals in private collections. However, most major collections have been identified and cataloged. The real work now is transcription, analysis, and interpretation—making these journals more widely accessible and integrating women's voices more fully into Mormon historical scholarship.

How do scholars use these journals as historical sources?

Historians read journals alongside other documents (letters, church records, census data, photographs) to build a fuller picture of a time and place. They analyze the language, themes, and concerns women expressed. They compare journals from different women to identify common patterns and unique experiences. They also read 'against the grain'—noticing what is left unsaid, what is coded or hidden, what contradicts official narratives. Journals are treated as evidence of how people thought and felt, not as objective facts, but as interpretations of reality shaped by the writer's perspective, literacy, and constraints.

Sources

Brigham Young University's Latter-day Saint Women's Collection maintains extensive transcribed journals and oral histories from early LDS women.
The Church History Library (Salt Lake City) holds original journals and digitized collections accessible through its online catalog.
Historical scholarship on early LDS women, including work by scholars like Laurel Thorp, Jill Mulvay Derr, and Carol Cornwall Madsen, draws heavily on primary journal sources.