Female Relief Society record book

L. Tom Perry Special Collections is pleased to announce the availability of a newly digitized collection: Female Relief Society record book (MSS SC 23).  This collection contains one minute book of the Female Relief Society in Salt Lake City, Utah, which outlines the activities, resolutions and meetings of the society. The record was kept by Louisa R. Taylor, the society’s secretary, and includes entries for meetings from January 9-June 13, 1854.  Some entries are also kept by assistant secretary Amanda Barnes Smith.

The purpose of the group was to make clothing for the local Native American women and children.  This was one of the first Relief Society organizations formed in Utah Territory, and is a predecessor to the official Relief Society organized by Brigham Young and Eliza R. Snow in 1855. A transcription of these minutes along with a historical note about this early Utah Relief Society group can be found as part of the online publication of The First Fifty Years of Relief Society (2008).