In 1843 women in Nauvoo, led by sisters Mercy Fielding Thompson and Mary Fielding Smith, organized a fund-raising effort for the construction of the Nauvoo temple. In her autobiography, Mercy recalled that while pondering how she could contribute to the temple, she received spiritual inspiration: "Try to get the Sisters to subscribe one cent per week for the purpose of buying glass and nails for the Temple." Joseph Smith endorsed the plan and Hyrum Smith, a member of the temple building committee and husband of Mary Fielding Smith, "was much plea[s]ed and did all in his power to encourage and help by speaking to the Sisters on the subject in private and public promising them that they should receive their blessings in that Temple." While the penny subscription effort was not an official project of the Relief Society in Nauvoo, it primarily involved Relief Society members and is an example of the public efforts of women in Nauvoo....
Church members in Boston also learned about the penny subscription drive and organized the Boston Female Penny and Sewing Society on July 16, 1844. ...
["Boston Female Penny and Sewing Society," Prophet (New York, NY), Feb. 8, 1845, vol. 1, no. 38, p. [2]., January 28, 1845, as quoted in Matthew J. Grow, Jill Derr, Carol Madsen, and Kate Holbrook, editors, The First Fifty Years of Relief Society: Key Documents in Latter-day Saint Women's History, The Church Historian's Press, 2016, https://churchhistorianspress.org/the-first-fifty-years-of-relief-society/]
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