Emily Sophia Tanner Richards (May 13, 1850 – August 19, 1929) was a key figure in the founding of the Utah Woman's Suffrage Association.

Wells, and Ellen B. Ferguson presented a memorial of the women of Utah to president Grover Cleveland to reduce anti-Mormon sentiment.

[2] In 1888, Emily Richards asked permission from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints leadership to form a Utah chapter of the National Women's Suffrage Association.

She spoke at the World's Congress of Representative Women on May 19, 1893 with a speech entitled The Legal and Political Status of Woman in Utah.

Her success at the World's Columbian Exposition led her to represent Utah women in others fairs: San Francisco (1894), Atlanta (1895), and Omaha (1898).