Overview

Welcome to the research guide for the Young Women organization of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. This guide is designed to assist you in finding and accessing resources about the Young Women organization and its history. In addition to this research guide, “The Story of Young Women: Stories from the Founding of the Young Women Organization,” found on the Church History website, is a principal resource.

The Church History Library has many resources for the Young Women organization. You can use the Church History Catalog to search for names of Young Women presidents, counselors, or family members. You can also search for wards, stakes, and missions. Searching the terms young women, young woman, MIA, YLMIA, YLNMIA, YWMIA (also written as “M.I.A.,” “Y.L.M.I.A.,” “Y.L.N.M.I.A.,” and “Y.W.M.I.A.”), personal progress, retrenchment, and other terms associated with the Young Women organization will provide many results. Use the facets on the left-hand side of the catalog to refine your search, such as date ranges, locations, and languages. This guide is not a comprehensive list of available sources but provides key records and a sampling of available records.

Acronyms:

MIA: Mutual Improvement Association

Retrenchment: Young Ladies’ Department of the Cooperative Retrenchment Association

YLMIA: Young Ladies’ Mutual Improvement Association

YLNMIA: Young Ladies’ National Mutual Improvement Association

YWMIA: Young Women’s Mutual Improvement Association

YMMIA: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Association

This guide contains online and on-site resources. Online resources are digitized content that you can access from your computer by clicking on the title. You may need to sign in to the catalog to view the online resource. At the Church History Library, historians and technicians digitize hundreds of images every month. If a collection is not currently available digitally, it could be soon. You can request digitization through the Ask Us inquiry form. Some collections are digitized but, because of copyright law, require you to be logged in to view the digital images and will require permission to download.

On-site resources can be viewed at the Church History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah. You can access item or collection information in the Church History Catalog and request to see the source when you visit the library.