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Of American-English origin, the noun snow angel designates an impression in the snow broadly resembling the conventional representation of an angel, made by lying on one’s back and moving one’s arms and legs back and forth in an arc along the ground.

This expression postdates the phrase to make angels, also to make an angel, meaning: to make such an impression in the snow.

But, originally, the noun snow angel designated an angelic being imagined as being the source of a fall of snow. The earliest occurrence that I have found is from a correspondence from Toronto, Ontario, dated Tuesday 3^rd February 1857, published in The Semi-Weekly Spectator (Hamilton, Ontario, Canada) of Saturday 7^th February 1857 [page 4, column 3]:

As you are aware, a snow storm is a real godsend to our corporation; in fact, it is a perfect harvest, and I imagine the City Fathers look on in irrepressible delight, when the snow-angel flutters her pinions and scatters the down over our streets in such profusion.

These are, in chronological order, the earliest occurrences that I have found of the phrase to make angels, also to make an angel—meaning: to make an impression in the snow:

1-: From Thornton Hall; Or, Old Questions in Young Lives (New York: Anson D. F. Randolph & Company, [1872]), by the U.S. author Phebe Fuller McKeen (1831-1880) [chapter 14, page 222]:

Those who shrunk from adventuring themselves, stood at the windows, and laughed to see the merry troop plunge into the drifts—push each other in—“make angels” in the snow—skirmish with snowballs.

2 [?]-: “I will show / You how to make angels in the snow” in S. E. Chamberlin’s poem [cf. footnote].

3-: From The Washburn Review (Topeka, Kansas, USA) of Wednesday 28^th October 1908 [page 3, column 3]—The Washburn Review is the student newspaper of Washburn University, Topeka, Kansas:

Some people never will grow dignified. The night of the snow storm, two would-be-dignified members of the class of 1909 might have been seen out doors engaged in an inspiriting snow fight, and also “making angels” in the fresh snow. What children some seniors are!

4-: From Anne’s Surprise, a short story by Fannie Kilbourne, published in The Sunday Journal (Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA) of Sunday 25^th April 1909 [Junior Section: page 8, column 2]:

When Anne woke up Thanksgiving morning the ground was covered with snow, the trees were heavy with it and the big white flakes were still falling. […] Anne had never seen the snow except in the city, where it was just on roofs and small patches of ground, so she thought the broad fields and meadows were lovely. She lay down and made “angels” in the snow. She waded in the deep snow and jumped off the woodshed roof into a big white drift.

Apart from the title of S. E. Chamberlin’s poem [cf. footnote], the earliest occurrence that I have found of the noun snow angel—used in the sense of an impression in the snow—is from The Washburn Review (Topeka, Kansas, USA) of Wednesday 16^th January 1918 [page 2, column 3]:

A man once said to a friend, “I have half a mind to join your church,” to which the friend replied, “well please don’t, we don’t care for any half-witted members.” We don’t want any half-witted Washburnites, either, so if you have “half a mind” to do anything, even study for finals, don’t. Go out and take a walk to Burnets’ mound, or make “snow angels” in the meadow, until you get over your half-mindedness, and then come back and buckle down to work, with your whole mind. And by the way, it isn’t a bad idea to make use of the meadow, or the campus for a little recreation during final week—in between the hours you spend absorbing information, of course. The take-a-walk-in-between times method has been discovered to be quite as effectual in getting ready for finals, as the drink strong coffee study all night method.

Note: Both the noun snow angel and the phrase to make angels occur in the following poem, published in The Western Rural and American Stockman (Chicago, Illinois, USA) of Saturday 4^th February 1893 [page 70, column 1]—but, because this poem is abstruse, I am unsure of their meaning:

Snow-Angels.
BY S. E. CHAMBERLIN.

A little maid, with books and bonnet
With snow-wreath feather light upon it,
Made tiny foot-prints in the snow,
And laughed because they followed so.

“Oh stay with me!” she urged with laughter
Which tripped my foots-steps swiftly after,
“Now stay,” she cried, “and I will show
You how to make angels in the snow.”

A something in the face upturning
Filled all my soul with woeful yearning.
My lips said “Yes”; my heart said “No!”
To the little angel in the snow.

Oh, Rosy Cheeks and Romping Races,
Conceal you then an angel’s graces?
Or was it in your eyes so blue
I saw the angel, child in you?

Or was it, in the snow mist, curling,
And set, by fickle zephyr, whirling,
That there a spirit child in air
I seemed to see; then naught was there.

Out-stretched in snow, the little maiden
Her impress left, and, lightly laden
And gazing on the vision white,
Said “You must go to heaven to-night.”

“Oh cease!” I cried. Her play I scouted,
And child and vision both I routed,
We talked of other things, and thought
The childish fancy well forgot.

Not then the time my heart was breaking,
In other days of sad awaking
I walked the city of the dead.
Alone I sought a snowy bed.

Like angel-forms were the marbles shrouded,
The tear-drops swift my face beclouded.
I could not think of her below;
But saw the angel in the snow.