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A century ago, Americans loved clubs, organizations and associations. They loved them even more when they were saturated with symbolism.
“Symbolism was a big deal in the early 20th century, peaking in the 1920s and 1930s,” says Lisa Olsen Tait, a Latter-day Saint historian. “They put on a lot of drama productions and pageants. On the Fourth of July, every Utah town had a Lady Liberty, a girl draped in white with a torch.”
That era of elaborate symbolic systems and activities gave rise to the original Bee-Hive Girl program, an intricate summer program for girls in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
It’s a history that Tait says adds richness and meaning to the new Young Women class names the church announced this week.
The original Bee-Hive Girls were like Girl Scouts or Camp Fire Girls or Boy Scouts, earning achievements in three ranks, acquiring knowledge and skills until they became a leader capable of directing the work of others:
- Builder of the Hive.
- Gatherer of Honey.
- Keeper of the Bees.
“You can see right there where some of the inspiration for these new names came from,” says Tait, co-author of “Carry On: A History of Young Women, 1870-2024."
The new class names are:
- Builders of Faith (young women turning 12-13).
- Messengers of Hope (those turning 14-15).
- Gatherers of Light (16 or older).
(See a through-the-years list of Young Women class names below.)
Young Women General President Emily Belle Freeman read the manuscript of Tait’s book before it was published, soon after she was received her calling from church leaders. She told the co-authors at the time about the parts of the history that resonated with her.
Church leaders retired the Beehive name in 2019, but Tait says the obvious through-line to the new class names adds depth to their meaning.
That original Bee-Hive program was drenched in the symbolism of how a beehive worked.
“They talked about what was called the spirit of the hive,” Tait says.
It was a broad, symbolic conception of spirituality — have faith, seek knowledge, safeguard help, honor womanhood, understand beauty, know work, love truth, taste the sweetness of service, and feel joy.
“They were helping girls to become full, whole persons, well developed and well balanced,” Tait says.
Americans today don’t resonate in the same way with symbolism, she says.
“To us, it feels a little bit cheesy. It feels kind of artificial, I guess, and just not something that we’re as comfortable with,” Tait says.
It’s impossible to go back and replicate the Bee-Hive Girls program because too much has changed, she says. By 2019, when Beehive, Mia Maid and Laurel were retired as class names, few people understood their past.
“They had lost their cultural cachet or symbolism,” she says, “and the idea of symbolism was less resonant for us by then.”
Tait says the story of the class names is great way to think about the contributions history can make.
“History is a very rich reservoir of ideas and inspiration and things that have resonated in the past,” she says. “I think this is a really lovely example of drawing on that reservoir of history in a way that can be applied and meaningful in the present.”
The new class names solve another problem, as two Deseret News contributors wrote this week: They are easier to translate into dozens of languages than, say, Mia Maid.
From her historian’s perspective, Tait likes the new class names.
“I find it really delightful to be bringing back some of these elements from the past,” she says.
“The context is totally different, and the way that they’ve been formulated, you don’t have to know the history. They can stand on their own and still convey something valuable.”
There is one other way the history of the names can enrich the present, Tait says.
“I think knowing the history can help us feel connected to the people of the past, to the young women and their experiences in the past,” she says.
The following chart captures some of the names and age ranges of Young Women classes over the past 123 years. For more details, see the “Carry On: A History of Young Women” and ChurchofJesusChrist.org.
| Years | Class Names |
|---|---|
| 1903-21 | Junior (14-16) |
| 1915-50 | Bee-Hive Girls (12-16) |
| 1950-59 | Bee-Hive Girls (12-13) |
| 1959-1972 | Beehives (12-13) |
| 1972-2019 | Beehives (12-13) |
| 2019-26 | Young Women |
| 2026-present | Builders of Faith |
Historical meaning of retired names
- Beehive: Symbolized the importance of harmony, cooperation and work to Latter-day Saint pioneers.
- Mia Maid: The programs for Young Women and Young Men were under the umbrella term Mutual Improvement Association, or M.I.A. The rose was the class symbol, representing love, faith and purity.
- Laurel: Derived from the laurel wreath, a traditional symbol of honor and finishing a significant achievement.
- Gleaner: Based on the biblical story of Ruth, signifying gathering and leadership.
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