Weak Things · Relief Society and women’s data · 1842 to 2026
Charity never faileth, counted.
Twenty women met in the room above Joseph Smith’s store in Nauvoo on March 17, 1842. Today the Relief Society counts more than eight million members, and women lead three of the Church’s worldwide organizations. Here is that story in numbers.
Membership figures are from Church sources. Conference counts are from the Weak Things conference index. Sources are listed in How we counted.
Chapter 1 · 1842 to 2025
From 20 women to 8 million
The society grew to 1,331 members in Nauvoo before it was suspended in 1844, was refounded in Utah in 1867 under Eliza R. Snow, and has grown with the Church ever since. The scale is logarithmic so the early years show.
Chapter 2 · 18 presidents
Every general president
From Emma Smith to Camille N. Johnson. Each bar is a term. The gaps are the years after the Saints left Nauvoo, before the society was reorganized, and the year between Eliza R. Snow and Zina D. H. Young.
Chapter 3 · 1842, 1869, 1878
Three organizations led by women
Relief Society for women, Young Women for young women, and Primary for children. All three are led by a general presidency of women who also sit on Church councils and speak at General Conference.
“Charity never faileth.”1 Corinthians 13:8, the Relief Society’s motto
Chapter 4 · February 14, 1870
The first women to vote
Utah Territory gave women the vote on February 12, 1870. Two days later, in a Salt Lake City election, Seraph Young, a 23-year-old schoolteacher, became the first woman in the United States to cast a ballot under an equal suffrage law. Seventeen years later, Congress took the vote away.
From the first ballot to statehood
“The first one who recorded her vote was Miss Seraph Young.”Deseret Evening News, February 1870
Chapter 5 · 1876 to 1978
The women who saved wheat
In 1876 Brigham Young asked Emmeline B. Wells to lead the women of the Church in storing grain. They ran the program for more than a century. Two stalks of wheat are still on the Relief Society emblem.
A century of grain
Chapter 6 · April 2000 to October 2026
Women at General Conference
Women speak in every General Conference. Count the talks by women in the Weak Things index, conference by conference, and the number has ranged from two to eight. Tap a point for that conference.
Women who have given the most conference talks since 2000
Chapter 7 · 2025
Women and children first
In 2025 the Relief Society General Presidency brought eight global humanitarian organizations into four consortia focused on mothers and children. As of April 2025, they had helped:
Chapter 8 · Named women
Women named in scripture
The Book of Mormon names only six women; the Old Testament names many more. These counts show how often women are named in the text, which is one measure, and not the size of their part in the story.
Women named in the Book of Mormon
Women named most in the Old Testament
“Hearken unto the voice of the Lord your God, while I speak unto you, Emma Smith, my daughter.”Doctrine and Covenants 25:1
How we counted
Sources and notes
- The vote. From the Utah State Archives, BYU Studies, “First to Vote” and Women’s suffrage in Utah.
- Wheat. 1918 bushels from the Religious Studies Center; 1978 bushels and value from the Church History Library’s Relief Society guide; the 1876 quotation from Barbara B. Smith, October 1978; the committee from The First Fifty Years of Relief Society; the Wilson visit from the Emmeline B. Wells chronology.
- Founding. From the Church History Museum’s page on the Relief Society minute book and Relief Society Foundations, Historic Nauvoo.
- Presidents. Terms are from the Church History Library’s list of Relief Society general presidents. Terms are shown by year; a president who began and ended in the same calendar year as another overlaps by up to a year.
- Membership. 1888 and 1991 from the Utah History Encyclopedia; 2006 and 2020 from Church News, March 2020; 2023 to 2025 from the annual Caring for Those in Need reports. Round figures are plotted as stated.
- Organizations. Young Women from Church History in the Fulness of Times, chapter 32; Primary from the Church Newsroom’s Primary timeline; Sister Chibota from her Church biography.
- Conference. Counts are talks by women in the Weak Things conference index, April 2000 to October 2026, the same index behind Conference by the Numbers. They depend on which sessions the index includes for each conference.
- Names in scripture. Whole-word counts in the current English text. Book of Mormon women named: Sariah, Abish, Isabel, Eve, Sarah and Mary.
- What the numbers can't say. A count shows size, pace and reach. It cannot measure faith, service or a changed heart. For those, read, serve and see.
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