There are nearly 1,300 Eliza R. Snow discourses on record. After spending decades privately lifting others through poetry, Snow shifted to a more public ministry when Brigham Young asked her to help rebuild Relief Societies in Territorial Utah. Terrified of public speaking, Eliza nonetheless accepted the prophet’s call. Several themes appear in the speeches she would later give, including charity, unity, and ministering as the Savior did. In this interview, editor Sharalyn Howcroft discusses Eliza’s teachings about overcoming trials as found in the newly-published book, “Rise Up and Speak: Selected Discourses of Eliza R. Snow.”
Don’t Miss Our Latest Interviews!
Be part of a growing community exploring topics such as the Emmeline B. Wells Diaries and the Relief Society General Board Minutes.
Eliza R. Snow’s Call to “Rise Up and Speak”
— While famous for her bold 1875 address, Snow’s journey from a reluctant speaker to a national voice for Latter-day Saint women took decades to develop.
Why was “Rise Up and Speak” chosen as the book’s title?
The book’s title is based on a discourse Eliza R. Snow gave to the Plain City Young Ladies’ Retrenchment Association on 16 November 1875, where she appealed to the assembled ladies to “rise up and speak” in defense of their religious freedom and the right of Latter-day Saints to practice plural marriage.
This discourse succinctly captured Snow’s recurrent invitation to women to engage in public speaking.
What was Eliza’s public speaking role between 1844 and 1868?
Snow authored a patriotic address that Phinehas Richards delivered at a Pioneer Day festival in July 1849, and she gave several poetry readings in 1854-1856 to the Polysophical Society, which her brother Lorenzo Snow organized.
Although the literary organization granted Snow an opportunity to recite her poetry in public, the forum sharply contrasted with her extemporaneous speaking engagements to Relief Societies and other church auxiliary organizations.
At times, she encountered challenges and tragedy in the places she visited and had to respond in the moment with words of comfort and solace. She was deeply uncomfortable with public speaking.
Snow related when Brigham Young invited her in 1868 to rebuild Relief Societies, her heart went “pit-a-pat.”
How did she overcome her fear of public speaking?
Eliza R. Snow’s acceptance of Brigham Young’s invitation was a result of her firm knowledge that he was a prophet of God. She felt a spiritual obligation to the church and the Relief Society that superseded her anxieties, and her confidence naturally increased the more she spoke.
Snow was aware that many women in the church were reticent to speak in public, yet she regarded Relief Society and Retrenchment Association meetings as ideal settings for women to practice and hone their public speaking skills, abandon rough language, and ultimately achieve self-improvement and refinement. She instructed women who didn’t think they had anything to say to just stand up in meetings and thoughts would come to their minds.
Her instruction effectively prepared women of Utah Territory to become visible and vocal opponents of anti-polygamy legislation.
How did Eliza use poetry to process difficulties?
Her poems offered comfort and solace to others in their times of hardship and moved readers to seek higher and holier pursuits.
During her lifetime, Eliza R. Snow composed more than 500 poems that embodied her thinking on theology, the Latter-day Saint people, her lived experience, connections and separations, and national political issues.
She wrote poems to family, friends, and prominent church leaders, including Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, to whom she was sealed as a plural wife.
Snow’s natural form of expression was poetry.
Snow gave poetic recitations to the Polysophical Society and the Deseret Literary and Musical Assembly during the 1850s. Her poems focus on building Zion, persecution and overcoming trials, and the intellectual and spiritual pursuits of women.
Snow’s natural form of expression was poetry, and it showcased her dazzling intellect, depth of gospel knowledge, love, compassion, and tenderness more readily than the extant records of her discourses seem to convey.
How did she use her words to comfort others at Winter Quarters?
While at Winter Quarters in 1846-1847, Eliza R. Snow visited sick and ailing women and offered them words of encouragement.
A witness to her actions observed:
Many a time have her words dropped like refreshing dews from the heavens, like manna they have come when most needed, reviving and giving new hope to the weary and hungry soul.
Her ministry at Winter Quarters shaped her later teachings on ministering to women’s spiritual and temporal needs and on providing relief, as Jesus Christ did.
What was the context behind her counsel against “tittle tattle”?
Snow’s warning against gossip was given to the women of the Salt Lake City Twentieth Ward Relief Society in July 1868, but there is contextual information about the relief society and ward dynamics that shaped this instruction.
Prior to July, Snow had visited the relief society on several occasions, where she instructed the women to love one another and to care for the temporally and spiritually poor.
A significant number of the ward members were poor European immigrants, and there were cultural and language barriers that impeded unity.
The language barrier was so significant that a Danish sister was assigned to care for the needs of the Danish families who did not speak English. There was evidently a disconnect about how best to serve immigrants.
Snow rightly observed that gossip would impede the women from achieving unity and that they should treat one another’s character as sacred. All would be granted spiritual assistance as they performed their duties.
Language barriers were common during Snow’s ministry, but her zeal for the gospel of Jesus Christ and the women of the church always shone through in her actions.
Take, for example, her several visits to the Scandinavian Relief Society. Snow noted in her February 1876 remarks that she didn’t understand the languages (plural!) spoken in the meeting, but was delighted to be in their midst, exclaiming, “I feel enlivened to be here.”
Reframing Past Hardship as Spiritual Power
— Snow utilized her discourses to help Saints interpret traumatic events like the Missouri persecutions through a lens of faith rather than victimhood.
What can we learn from Eliza’s 1849 reflections on the U.S. Constitution?
In her discourse “The Spirit of Liberty,” Eliza R. Snow lauded American ideals of liberty and freedom and condemned the U.S. government’s failure to protect the Latter-day Saints.
It would be easy for her to broadly paint the government and its founding documents as evil, considering Missouri’s persecutions, but she carefully delineated the “corrupted and degenerate administration” from the “pure principles” of the Constitution.
Snow reminded her audience of its responsibility to revive and support the original principles of the Constitution.
Snow’s reflections illuminate her maturity and the precision with which she interprets the past.
The solution to ensuring that the atrocities and cruelties of Missouri didn’t happen again was to instill a legacy of liberty and freedom in the hearts and minds of their children and be watchful and alert to oppression and encroachments upon liberty.
Snow’s reflections on the U.S. Constitution and Missouri persecutions illuminate her maturity and the precision with which she interprets the past. She is clearly not operating in binaries and recognizes the personal duty to respond to one’s circumstances.
Her rhetoric reinforces that she refuses to be a victim of the past, instead choosing to actively respond to circumstances so the same atrocities do not happen again.
How did Eliza R. Snow frame the handcart emigration experience?
In Snow’s theology, absolute faith in God and adherence to His prophets gave purpose to the sacrifice—it was not meaningless!—and portrayed a heavenly reward far exceeding any earthly reward.
Her speech, “Gathering the Honest in Heart From Every Clime,” was delivered before receiving news of the stranded William and Martin handcart company, but it illustrates her firm faith in God’s work among His people.
Snow compared the handcart pioneers to the children of Israel wandering in the wilderness.
According to Snow, the handcart emigration enabled many Latter-day Saints to gather to Zion.
Those who embarked on the journey possessed a combination of the Spirit of God, faith, and obedience that helped them transcend the privations and hardships they experienced.
Snow compared the handcart pioneers to the children of Israel wandering in the wilderness, noting that although the handcart pioneers did not possess worldly wealth, they arrived with the brain, bone, and sinew requisite to build a temple of God, where they would receive exquisite heavenly raiment and participate in the work of salvation.
Did she use stories from Kirtland to encourage Latter-day Saints?
Eliza occasionally reflected on her time living in Kirtland, although her stories didn’t focus on the challenges.
She spoke of children holding meetings in Kirtland to sing, pray, and enjoy the blessings of the gospel; the outpouring of spiritual gifts and miraculous manifestations at the Kirtland temple dedication; and of experiencing heavenly visions.
Snow recalled some vignettes from her life, including her conversion to the church in Ohio. She spoke of her monetary donations to build the Kirtland temple, which seemed trivial compared to the temple’s blessings.
I suspect in retrospect her Ohio experience was placid and sheer bliss compared to the injustices of Missouri.
Counsel for Latter-day Saint Pioneer Women
— Her teachings addressed the unique theological challenges of 19th-century Utah, from the practice of plural marriage to the “curse of Eve.”
How did Eliza R. Snow view polygamy as a tool for personal growth?
Snow framed Latter-day Saint polygamy as a collective good that enabled women to advance in the kingdom of God and schooled them in a way that transcended their failings.
She encouraged looking to higher purposes and not being absorbed in trivial things or the inequities of worldly possessions.
She believed the cooperative efforts of women—which in this discourse included the cooperation of women in plural marriage—unified and refined them in a great work, developed womanhood, and aided their salvation.
How would Eliza approach the “Fall of Eve” today?
Snow said the fall of Eve occurred through disobedience and that it was obedience that would bring women back into the presence of God.
Her rhetoric about the curse of Eve was intrinsically connected to “honoring God in all the institutions He has revealed to us,” which for her included plural marriage, and she chastised women who spoke against the practice.
I don’t see her being averse to changing her perspective on Eve or the Fall.
Given that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints no longer practices polygamy, I suspect that her teaching equating obedience with the practice of plural marriage would fall by the wayside, but undeviating obedience to God’s revealed word would remain.
In all fairness to Snow, though, her thinking on several aspects of the gospel of Jesus Christ evolved over decades. I don’t see her being averse to changing her perspective on Eve or the Fall.
How did Eliza’s global travels influence her local discourses?
Eliza’s frequent travels provided ample opportunities for her to interact with people of other faiths. She relayed those interactions in her discourses and characterized the Latter-day Saints as people with higher aims and a glorious purpose in contrast to the diversions and frivolity of Babylon.
For example, her description of the “pompous nothingness” of worldly fashions sharply contrasted with the measured modesty and simple style promoted in the retrenchment movement.
The influx of Latter-day Saints from European and Scandinavian countries to Territorial Utah brought the global church to Snow’s doorstep.
Her discourses addressed universal themes that transcended cultural differences.
While Snow’s discourses addressed the practicalities of attending church meetings, raising children, and contemporary political issues, they also addressed universal and timeless themes of charity and unity, ministering to others as Jesus would, and living up to one’s divine potential.
These themes transcended cultural and linguistic differences as diverse people aligned their lives with the church’s teachings and doctrine.
Practical Discipleship in Times of Difficulty
— By identifying a cheerful disposition and the companionship of the Spirit as tools for resilience, Snow taught that trials were not merely hardships to be endured, but essential experiences for eternal life.
What did Eliza R. Snow teach about staying cheerful in the midst of trials?
She identified a cheerful disposition as a key component to overcoming trials and Satan. She urged women to make their homes happy, try to make others happy, and speak of cheerful things amid their trials.
Yet according to Snow, this cheer stemmed from possessing the Spirit of God; it was not mere affectation for the sake of appearances.
She attributed happy countenances to the Spirit and cheerful babies to mothers who possessed the spirit of God.
In other words, possessing the Spirit of God was the source of cheerfulness, and it was the companionship of the Spirit that helped people triumph over trials and Satan.
What role did education play in Eliza’s view of progress?
Eliza R. Snow saw education as a spiritual, domestic, and temporal imperative. It would prepare Latter-day Saint women to “fill high and holy positions” in the church and to assist mothers in building their children’s character at home.
Additionally, Snow advocated women receiving a thorough education of human physiology and obstetrics, at one time even imploring young women to “know enough about the human frame to amputate a limb if it were necessary.”
This instruction may seem severe to modern readers, but it highlights the uncertainties of competent, reliable medical care in Territorial Utah.
During the 1870s, eastern doctors were apparently conducting lecture tours on female health throughout the area, one of which offered dubious “miraculous cures.”
A serious study of the human body was the genesis of several Latter-day Saint women becoming midwives.
A serious study of the human body not only armed women with knowledge to avoid questionable medical practices but also served as the genesis of several Latter-day Saint women becoming midwives.
Select women, including Romania Pratt, received medical degrees from schools in the Eastern United States and returned home armed with specialized skills and expertise to bless the lives of the Latter-day Saints.
Although there were “Gentile” doctors in the territory, social and economic frictions between Latter-day Saints and their neighbors led to lingering distrust and suspicion.
How did she connect her counsel with the words of Church leaders?
Snow’s counsel on overcoming difficulties and trials does not explicitly connect to the teachings of church leaders. However, there are a couple of exceptions in which she may have referenced Brigham Young’s teachings.
Possessing the Spirit
In an August 1873 discourse we’ve titled “Our Sphere is Increasing,” Eliza appears to allude to recent remarks Brigham Young delivered in Logan.
Young stated (more or less) that people who possess the Spirit and try to live the gospel of Jesus Christ have no trials compared to those who possess the spirit of the world.
Snow’s recapitulation of Young’s idea was, “When you are filled with this Spirit, do you have any trials? I do not think you do.”
Overcoming timidity
Another possible exception may be when Brigham Young instructed Relief Society women to meet weekly to overcome timidity—a direction that likely fed into Snow’s insistence that women learn public speaking.
We need to understand, as modern observers, that this instruction from Young and Snow is occurring in the mid to late 19th century, when women were transitioning their power and influence from the domestic sphere into public spaces through activism and suffrage causes.
I surmise this adjustment would be simultaneously anxiety-laden and exhilarating for many Latter-day Saint women.
Which of Eliza R. Snow’s teachings on trials is most meaningful to you?
In a July 1868 discourse entitled “A Solid Start for a Long Race,” Snow stated:
God sometimes withdraws His Spirit from us to try us—or we might think it was something inherent with us, and God will try us and show us He is our strength. We must acknowledge His hand in all things.
He will have a tried people—if we want all the glory, we must be willing to endure the trials. We are gaining an experience, which is our wealth beyond the grave.
Why should we shrink from experience?
Eliza R. Snow, “A Solid Start for a Long Race,” July 1868.
This quote reminds me that although my deepest trials have left me feeling battered and hopeless, spiritually and emotionally worn, and friendless, there is eternal purpose and meaning to them.
Trials are the personal cost for eternal glory.
Want More Scholar Interviews in Your Inbox?
Be part of a growing community exploring history, religion, and scholarship.
About the Scholar
Sharalyn D. Howcroft is an archivist and documentary editor for the Church History Department of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. She has served as a project archivist for the Joseph Smith Papers and as a volume editor for The Joseph Smith Papers, Documents, Volume 2: July 1831–January 1833. Her extensive research into the minute books and personal papers of early Church leaders and organizations provided the foundation for identifying and transcribing Eliza R. Snow’s extensive public record.
Further Reading
Explore more From the Desk articles about Latter-day Saint women’s history and oratory:
- What Are the Discourses of Eliza R. Snow?
- Who Was Lucy Mack Smith?
- How Did Emma Smith Shape the “Elect Lady” Revelation?
- Why Did Mormons Practice Polygamy?
- What’s Really in the Journal of Discourses?
Primary Sources and Scholarly Research
Read what top scholars and publishers say about Eliza R. Snow’s life and discourses:
- Rise Up and Speak: Selected Discourses of Eliza R. Snow (Church Historian’s Press)
- The First Fifty Years of Relief Society (Church Historian’s Press)
- The Significance of “O My Father” in the Personal Journey of Eliza R. Snow (BYU Studies)
- Eliza Roxcy Snow Biography (Joseph Smith Papers)
- Making the Acquaintance of Eliza R. Snow: An Interview With Her Biographer, Jill Mulvay Derr (BYU Studies)
