history

Founded in 1869, the Young Women organization was originally known as the Young Ladies’ Department of the Cooperative Retrenchment Association. Brigham Young, the second President and prophet of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, called together daughters and their mothers for a special meeting in the parlor. Following family prayer, President Young addressed his family. Among other things he said: “I desire to organize my family into a society for the promotion of habits of order, thrift, industry, and charity; and, above all things, I desire them to retrench from extravagance in dress, in eating and even in speech. The time has come when the sisters must agree . . . to set an example before the people of the world worthy of imitation. I want you to set your own fashions . . . and set the style for the rest of the world who desire sensible and comely fashions to follow. I want my daughters to learn to work, and to do it.

“I have long had it in my mind to organize the young ladies of Zion into an association so that they might assist the older members of the Church, their fathers and mothers, in . . . teaching and practicing the principles I have been so long teaching. There is a need for the young daughters . . . to get a living testimony of the truth. I wish our girls to obtain a knowledge of the Gospel for themselves. . . . We are about to organize a Retrenchment Association, which I want you all to join, and I want you to vote to retrench in . . . everything that is bad or worthless, and improve in everything that is good and beautiful. Not to make yourselves unhappy, but to live so that you may be truly happy in this life and the life to come.”

The Young Women organization has been referred to by several different names throughout its existence:

1869 — Young Ladies’ Department of the Cooperative Retrenchment Association
1875 — Young Ladies’ National Mutual Improvement Association
1904 — Young Ladies’ Mutual Improvement Association
1934 — Young Women’s Mutual Improvement Association
1972 — Aaronic Priesthood, Young Women
1974 — Young Women

This international organization is the oldest and largest organization of its kind for teenage girls.

The following women have served as general presidents of the Young Women:

Ella Young Empey, 1869-1880
Elmina Shepherd Taylor, 1880-1904
Martha Horne Tingey, 1905-1929
Ruth May Fox, 1929-1937
Lucy Grant Cannon, 1937-1948
Bertha Stone Reeder, 1948-1961
Florence Smith Jacobsen, 1961-1972
Ruth Hardy Funk, 1972-1978
Elaine Anderson Cannon, 1978-1984
Ardeth Greene Kapp, 1984-1992
Janette Callister Hales Beckham, 1992-1997
Margaret Dyreng Nadauld, 1997-2002
Susan Winder Tanner, 2002-present

You may want to access the articles listed below through PDF on lds.org to view the graphics. Further information on history of the Young Women program will be posted here as it becomes available.