Carry On

Journals of Early Sister Missionaries

The Prison Journal of Belle Harris

The Discourses of Eliza R. Snow

The Diaries of Emmeline B. Wells

The Journal of George F. Richards

At the Pulpit

The First Fifty Years of Relief Society

The Journal of George Q. Cannon

The Joseph Smith Papers

Brigham Young family homes, Salt Lake City. 1865. The Lion House, with its distinctive gabled windows, is shown from the side. The original Young Ladies’ Department of the Ladies’ Cooperative Retrenchment Association was organized in the parlor of this house on 27 May 1870. (Image courtesy Church History Library, Salt Lake City.)

Brigham Young Family Homes, Salt Lake City

Ten of Brigham Young’s daughters. 1865. As social leaders in the Latter-day Saint community, these young women were positioned to lead the new junior retrenchment movement. Ella Young Empey, center front, served as the first president of the Young Ladies’ Department of the Ladies’ Cooperative Retrenchment Association. Maria Young Dougall, top right, was one of Ella’s counselors and later served as a counselor in the YLMIA general presidency from 1887 to 1904. (Image courtesy Church History Library, Salt Lake City.)

Ten of Brigham Young’s Daughters

Our Little Gem newspaper, front page. December 1881. This manuscript newspaper was created by young women from the Ovid Ward, Bear Lake Stake, in Idaho Territory. Such handwritten newspapers—containing essays, poems, and stories written by local members—were popular among Young Ladies’ Mutual Improvement Associations. (Image courtesy Church History Library, Salt Lake City.)

Our Little Gem Newspaper, Front Page

Cover illustration, Young Woman’s Journal. June 1890. Susa Young Gates founded the magazine in 1889 to serve as the official organ of the YLMIA and provide an outlet for her own and others’ literary talents. (Image courtesy Church History Library, Salt Lake City.)

Cover Illustration, Young Woman’s Journal

Maud May Babcock demonstrating physical culture. 1894. Illustrating the progressive and athletic New Woman ethos, in 1894 the Young Woman’s Journal published a series of “educational gymnastics” demonstrated by Babcock, an instructor of physical culture at the University of Utah. The exercise depicted here was intended to improve posture. (Image courtesy Special Collections, J. Willard Marriott Library, University of Utah, Salt Lake City. Maud May Babcock Photo Collection, P0083, 61.)

Maud May Babcock Demonstrating Physical Culture

Elmina Shepard Taylor and YLMIA general board. 1898. Taylor (front center) was the first general president of the YLMIA, serving from 1880 until her death in 1904. She is pictured here with her counselors, Martha Horne Tingey (left of Taylor) and Maria Young Dougall (right of Taylor), and members of the general board. (Image courtesy Church History Library, Salt Lake City.)

Elmina Shepard Taylor and YLMIA General Board

Brighton summer home. 1924. This large, new summer home in Big Cottonwood Canyon, east of Salt Lake City, welcomed its first campers in 1921. It was built through the combined efforts of the Ensign, Liberty, Pioneer, and Salt Lake stakes and was among the first permanent facilities for Latter-day Saint young women’s camps. (Image courtesy Church History Library, Salt Lake City.)

Brighton Summer Home

Hawthorne Ward MIA drama winners. 1924. Members of the Hawthorne Ward in Salt Lake City, pictured here in costume, won the Granite Stake Merry-Go-Round drama event. Over 250 participants traveled by automobile to perform their acts at the various ward buildings in the stake, setting the pattern for MIA road shows that would thrive for more than fifty years. (Image courtesy “Hawthorne Blossoms,” in “Preaching the Gospel of Better Recreation,” Young Woman’s Journal, May 1924, 258, copy at Church History Library, Salt Lake City.)

Hawthorne Ward MIA Drama Winners

Bee-Hive Girls of the Zwickau Branch. 1924. In Germany, the Zwickauer Bienenkorbmädchen, or Bee-Hive Girls of the Zwickau Branch, developed a robust program during the 1920s and 1930s, including these matching uniforms with beehive insignia. Several young women kept their Bee-Hive Girls scrapbooks among the few treasured possessions they brought when immigrating to new lands. (Image courtesy Glenn Fassmann.)

Bee-Hive Girls of the Zwickau Branch

Banners at the MIA Jubilee. 1925. This celebration marked the fiftieth anniversary of the MIA organizations, specifically the organization of the young men’s association in 1875. Participants from local units made banners to represent the MIA in their stakes and marched in a grand parade during June Conference in Salt Lake City. (Image courtesy Church History Library, Salt Lake City.)

Banners at the MIA Jubilee

Alpine Stake MIA orchestra at June Conference. 1927. This orchestra composed of MIA members from Utah County won second place in its division at the music contest finals. Churchwide contests in music, speech, drama, and dance were highly anticipated features of the annual MIA conference. (Image courtesy Church History Library, Salt Lake City.)

Alpine Stake MIA Orchestra at June Conference

Kidderminster MIA conference. 1935. Youth from throughout the British Isles gathered in Kidderminster Town Hall for the first festivities of an MIA conference held in Kidderminster, England. One attendee reminisced, “The sweetest days that I ever knew, I spent then in Kidderminster.” (A. Leslie Derbyshire, “On the Road to Kidderminster,” Latter-day Saints’ Millennial Star, 11 June 1936, 384.) (Image courtesy Church History Library, Salt Lake City.)

Kidderminster MIA Conference

Members of the Linden Lionettes at the Lion House. 1931. The Linden Lionettes club was founded in 1937 by Ruth May Fox, general president of the YWMIA. Club members were typically single working women who moved to Salt Lake City and could not regularly attend MIA meetings due to employment conflicts. They met weekly at the Lion House, which served then as a social center for members of the YWMIA. (Image courtesy Michael Morris, copy at Church History Library, Salt Lake City.)

Members of the Linden Lionettes at the Lion House

Rose Tying Ceremony, Aurora, Utah. 1948. This Junior Girls class from rural central Utah participated in the annual Rose Tying Ceremony, a formal celebratory evening where young women presented a rose—preferably one they had personally cultivated—whose color or type symbolized their personal ideals. The roses were then tied together and presented to the president of the ward YWMIA. This tradition was similar to the Gleaners’ sheaf-binding ceremonies, and both were major events on the YWMIA calendar. (Church History Library, Salt Lake City.) (Image courtesy Church History Library, Salt Lake City.)

Rose Tying Ceremony, Aurora, Utah

Gold and Green Ball, New Zealand. Circa 1949. Young women and young men in New Zealand sashayed around the dance hall as they performed the floor show, observed by dozens of spectators and the ball royalty. These elaborate, formal balls became a cherished annual tradition of Mutual Improvement Associations beyond North America and often involved local church members and non–Latter-day Saints alike, including individuals outside the traditional MIA age. (Image courtesy Gordon Woodruff Young, copy at Church History Library, Salt Lake City.)

Gold and Green Ball, New Zealand

Blackfoot Fourth Ward YWMIA softball team. 1953. This team from Blackfoot, Idaho, took home the prize from a stake softball competition. Women’s and men’s sports were a significant component of the MIA program and were an effective missionary tool to introduce other young people to the church. (Image courtesy Post Register [Idaho Falls, ID], copy at Church History Library, Salt Lake City.)

Blackfoot Fourth Ward YWMIA Softball Team

MIA chorus at the Hollywood Bowl. 1954. Seeking to make the June Conference experience available to church members outside Utah, leaders in Southern California organized a large conference that drew thousands of participants and spectators. This chorus of 1,500 youth sang at the music festival for an estimated audience of 16,000. (Image courtesy Church History Library, Salt Lake City. Photograph by Vic Stein and Associates.)

MIA Chorus at the Hollywood Bowl

Singers at the Danish Mission MIA convention. 1956. Young women from Copenhagen, Denmark, participated in a music contest in Aalborg, Denmark. A banner displaying the year’s MIA theme is in the background: “I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth” (Romans 1:16). Similar regional conventions were held all over the world. (Image courtesy Church History Library, Salt Lake City.)

Singers at the Danish Mission MIA Convention

June Conference dance festival, University of Utah Ute Stadium. 1963. Spectators of the June Conference dance festival filled the Ute Stadium (now the Rice-Eccles Stadium) to its thirty-thousand-person capacity to watch thousands of youth dance in varying styles and formations. The yearly event became so popular that by the mid-1950s it was televised throughout Salt Lake City. (Image courtesy Church History Library, Salt Lake City.)

June Conference Dance Festival, University of Utah Ute Stadium

Cover illustration, For the Strength of Youth booklet. 1965. This first edition of For the Strength of Youth was divided into sections addressing manners, dating, dancing, dress, and clean living and encouraged all members of the church to be familiar with the standards it advocated. The introduction to the booklet emphasized the importance of remaining different from the world by living according to the high moral standards by which Latter-day Saints were known. (Image courtesy Church History Library, Salt Lake City.)

Cover Illustration, For the Strength of Youth Booklet

Rexburg Fifth Ward Honor Night. 1968. Even as the correlation movement initiated significant changes in the YWMIA, young women maintained time-honored traditions, such as this Beehive Honor Night in Rexburg, Idaho. The young women wore bandoliers—colloquially known as bandlos—personalized with their signature flower and achievement badges. Honor Nights began in the 1930s to celebrate individual achievement. (Image courtesy Church History Library, Salt Lake City.)

Rexburg Fifth Ward Honor Night

Centennial commemorative linen dish towel. 1969. The YWMIA commissioned several items to celebrate its centennial, including this dish towel. It features significant iconography: the Lion House, where the first young women’s association was organized; the Salt Lake Temple; pioneer symbols of the sego lily and seagulls; and symbols representing the Beehive, Mia Maid, and Gleaner classes. The two young women in the center—one in pioneer clothing, one in modern dress—represent generational unity in the goals of the organization, which was also expressed in the motto for the celebration: “A Century of Sisterhood.” (Image courtesy Lisa Olsen Tait.)

Centennial Commemorative Linen Dish Towel

APMIA organization charts. 1972. These charts published in the 11 November 1972 issue of the Church News show the new APMIA organization at the stake and ward levels. They illustrate how the MIA was incorporated into and layered under priesthood lines of authority. (Image courtesy Church History Library, Salt Lake City.)

APMIA Organization Charts

APMIA presidencies and advisers. 1972. From 1972 to 1974, the combined presidencies of Ruth Hardy Funk and Robert L. Backman worked closely with the Presiding Bishopric to reshape and realign the church’s youth organizations, then known as Aaronic Priesthood MIA. Seated, left to right: APMIA–Young Women president Ruth Funk, Hortense Hogan Child, and Ardeth Greene Kapp. Standing, left to right: presiding bishop Victor L. Brown, H. Burke Peterson, Vaughn J. Featherstone, APMIA–Young Men president Robert L. Backman, LeGrand R. Curtis Sr., and Jack H. Goaslind. (Image courtesy Church News, copy at Church History Library, Salt Lake City.)

APMIA Presidencies and Advisers

Youth service project, Bountiful, Utah. 1974. To commemorate the 145th anniversary of the restoration of the Aaronic Priesthood, youth churchwide were encouraged to help plan local service projects, sporting events, or other group activities. Young men and women in the Bountiful Twenty-Eighth Ward painted the home of a widow in their community. (Image courtesy Church News, copy at Church History Library, Salt Lake City.)

Youth Service Project, Bountiful, Utah

Young Women fireside and worldwide satellite broadcast. 1985. In the fireside, Ardeth Greene Kapp and her presidency introduced the Young Women theme and values. Music at the fireside brought together new changes and past traditions as young women sang Ruth May Fox’s 1930 MIA anthem, “Carry On,” while holding aloft flags with colors representing each of the new values. (Image courtesy Church News, copy at Church History Library, Salt Lake City.)

Young Women Fireside and Worldwide Satellite Broadcast

The Rising Generation worldwide Young Women celebration, Buenos Aires, Argentina. 1986. On 11 October 1986, hundreds of thousands of young women around the globe released helium-filled balloons skyward with personal messages of love and testimony attached, expressing hope for unity and peace. (Image courtesy Church History Library, Salt Lake City.)

The Rising Generation Worldwide Young Women Celebration, Buenos Aires, Argentina

Ardeth Greene Kapp with Young Women logo and Personal Progress booklet. 1989. During her tenure from 1984 to 1992, Kapp reoriented the Young Women programs around a theme and values expressing Latter-day Saint beliefs. The torch logo and revised Personal Progress achievement program further solidified the organization’s identity after rapid changes in the 1970s. (Image courtesy Church History Library, Salt Lake City.)

Ardeth Greene Kapp with Young Women Logo and Personal Progress Booklet

Young women of Italy hiking as part of Fiaccola Novanta. 1990. Young women gathered to camp in a rugged area in Abruzzo, Italy, where half the region is dedicated to nature preserves. There they assembled basic structures for their camp, cooked their food outside, hiked several miles, and developed a common sense of identity as young women in the Church of Jesus Christ. (Image courtesy Elisabetta Calabrese.)

Young Women of Italy Hiking as Part of Fiaccola Novanta

Young women camp in Mongolia. 1995. Young women in Mongolia squeezed into tents at the country’s first camp. Despite torrential rains and transportation setbacks, the girls “loved every aspect” of their evening at camp and leaders did not hear a word of complaint (Mary N. Cook, “First Young Women Camp in Mongolia,” New Era, June 2012, 27). Because the first missionaries were allowed into Mongolia only three years earlier, most campers and leaders were new members of the church. As membership continued to grow in new international areas, ongoing efforts to make the Young Women program culturally translatable became increasingly important. (Image courtesy Church History Library, Salt Lake City.)

Young Women Camp in Mongolia

Zandile Qinisile after Sunday church meetings, South Africa. Circa 1998. Zandile (left), her cousin Zamanguni Queeneth Dlamuka (right), and friend Yolanda Radebe (center) lived in Protea Glen, Johannesburg, and attended church together. The young women often returned from church to Yolanda’s home to sit under the tree, where they chatted and discussed church activities. (Image courtesy Zandile Qinisile.)

Zandile Qinisile after Sunday Church Meetings, South Africa

Cultural celebration for Mexico City Mexico Temple rededication. 2008. Mexican youth celebrated the reopening of the Mexico City Mexico Temple through traditional music and dance before an audience of eighty-seven thousand in Estadio Azteca. International temple construction grew dramatically in the early twenty-first century. To commemorate temple dedications and rededications, youth participated in large cultural events—reminiscent of the large MIA festivals held in the mid-twentieth century—that featured their country’s church history and traditional dance and music. (Image courtesy Church News.)

Cultural Celebration for Mexico City Mexico Temple Rededication

Young women raising virtue banner, California. 2009. Following the example of President Elaine Schwartz Dalton, young women from the Concord Ward in California unfurled a gold banner atop a mountain as a “standard to the nations . . . calling for a return to virtue” (Elaine S. Dalton, “A Return to Virtue,” Ensign, Nov. 2008, 79). Doing so symbolized their commitment to the new virtue value. Added to the Young Women program in 2008, the new value emphasized high moral standards, including chastity. Similar symbolic banner raisings occurred around the world. (Photograph by Laura Berrett.)

Young Women Raising Virtue Banner, California

Youth community service project, Philippines. 2014. Donning iconic Helping Hands vests, Latter-day Saint youth from the San Mateo Ward in Rizal fixed and painted school chairs at the Casimiro A. Ynares Sr. Memorial National High School. Young women all over the world participated in similar events, ranging from community service to local and international disaster relief. (Image courtesy The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.)

Youth Community Service Project, Philippines

Young women participating in worldwide indexing event, Salt Lake City. 2016. Youth from the Northpoint Second Ward indexed names on FamilySearch at their local stake family history center as part of a global push for youth participation in family history work. Youth in the 2010s engaged in temple and family history work on FamilySearch.org via computer or on FamilySearch mobile apps developed for smartphones in 2014. (Photograph by Brittany Chapman Nash.)

Young Women Participating in Worldwide Indexing Event, Salt Lake City

Youth temple trip, Guayaquil, Ecuador. 2018. These young women and men from Colombia brought to the temple several names they had extracted through family history indexing efforts. During the special temple trip, they were baptized vicariously for the individuals they had researched. (Image courtesy Daniel Rosero.)

Youth Temple Trip, Guayaquil, Ecuador

Youth at temple devotional, California. 2019. In the 2010s, an increased focus on the work of salvation and exaltation strengthened Latter-day Saint youth’s commitment to temple attendance and ordinance work. These young men and women were among three thousand youth who attended a special devotional before the Oakland California Temple rededication. Youth devotionals began to replace youth cultural celebrations held before temple dedications and rededications. (Image courtesy The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.)

Youth at Temple Devotional, California

Service activity, Guatemala City, Guatemala. 2024. Young women in the Lo de Coy Ward learned to sow seeds and grow seedlings for families in need within their congregation. Recent shifts to simplify ministering efforts continued the focus on service that had remained strong in the Young Women organization since the reorientation of the youth programs in the 1970s. (Image courtesy Oscar M. Abadillo.)

Service Activity, Guatemala City, Guatemala

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Publication from the Church History Department of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints