155 years ago today - May 27, 1870

During 1869 and 1870, Latter-day Saint women developed a distinct organization for young women, the first such organization in the church's history. This organization, the Young Ladies' Department of the Ladies' Cooperative Retrenchment Association, was initiated in response to Brigham Young's call for simplification in meal preparation, housekeeping, and clothing. The Young Ladies' Department operated both in connection with and separately from the Relief Society.

The first young ladies' organization consisted of Brigham Young's adolescent and young adult daughters (ranging in age from fourteen to twenty-two), both married and unmarried. ...

On May 27, 1870, which should be considered the formal founding date of the young ladies' organization, Young's daughters organized themselves as the First Young Ladies' Department of the Ladies' Cooperative Retrenchment Association and adopted resolutions composed by Eliza R. Snow, one of Young's plural wives and an avid proponent of reform. ... The young ladies' departments soon became known as the Young Ladies' Retrenchment Association; in 1877 the organization was officially renamed the Young Ladies' Mutual Improvement Association, often abbreviated Y.L.M.I.A.

RESOLUTIONS

Adopted by the First Young Ladies' Department of the Ladies' Co-operative Retrenchment Association, S.L. City, organized May 27, 1870.

Resolved.—That, realizing ourselves to be wives and daughters of Apostles, Prophets and Elders of Israel, and, as such, that high responsibilities rest upon us...

Resolved.—That, inasmuch as the Saints have been commanded to gather out from Babylon and "n[o]t partake of her sins, that they receive not of her plagues," we feel that we should not condescend to imitate the pride, folly and fashions of the world...

Resolved.—That we will respect ancient and modern apostolic instructions. St. Paul exhorted Timothy to teach "the women to adorn themselves in modest apparel—not with braided hair, or gold or pearls, or costly array... Peter, also, in his first epi[s]tle, in speaking of women, says, "Whose adorning, let it not be that outward adorning of plaiting the hair, and wearing of gold, or of putting on apprrel...

Resolved.—That, with a firm and settled determination to honor the foregoing requirements, and being deeply sensible of the sinful ambition and vanity in dress among the daughters of Zion, which are calculated to foster the pride of the world, and shut out the spirit of God from the heart, we mutually agree to exert our influence, both by precept and by example, to suppress, and to eventually eradicate these evils.

Resolved.—That, admitting variety has its charms, we know that real beauty appears to greater advantage in a plain dress than when bedizened with finery, and while we disapprobate extravagance and waste, we would not, like the Quakers, recommend a uniform, but would have each one to choose the style best adapted to her own taste and person: at the same time we shall avoid, and ignore as obsolete with us, all extremes which are opposed to good sense, or repulsive to modesty.

Resolved.—That, inasmuch as cleanliness is a characteristic of a Saint, and an imperative duty, we shall discard the dragging skirts, and, for decency's sake, those disgustingly short ones, extending no lower than the boot tops. We also regard "paniers," and whatever approximates in appearance toward the "Grecian Bend," a burlesque on the natural beauty and dignity of the human female form, and will not disgrace our persons by wearing them. And, also, as fast as it shall be expedient, we shall adopt the wearing of home-made articles, and exercise our united influence in rendering them fashionable. ...

[3.18 Young Ladies' Department of the Ladies' Cooperative Retrenchment Association, Resolutions, May 27, 1870, as quoted in Matthew J. Grow, Jill Derr, Carol Madsen, and Kate Holbrook, editors, The First Fifty Years of Relief Society: Key Documents in Latter-day Saint Women's History, The Church Historian's Press, 2016, https://churchhistorianspress.org/the-first-fifty-years-of-relief-society/]