It’s an old adage in Latter-day Saint circles that the Relief Society is the “oldest women’s organization in the world.” To be fair, I searched around briefly and could not find any current Church reference to it being the oldest, just “one of the oldest,” although I did find some speculation that it was the oldest.

Still, I informally hear the unqualified bit about them being the “oldest,” so I thought some mythbusting was in order.

First, the Ladies’ Association of Philadelphia was founded in 1780 to help the Revolutionary War effort. Interestingly, their fundraised funds went to Continental Army uniforms in the same way that the early Relief Society was organized to help clothe temple workers. (Also, sidebar, there is no Wikipedia article on them; given how much money Wikipedia pours into representation you’d think that there would be).

Second the Société de Charité Maternelle was a charitable organization founded in 1788 that was founded, run by, and staffed by women in order to help provide aid to impoverished women of infants. (Also, another fun parallel, in the same way that Joseph Smith assigned his wife to lead the Relief Society, Napoleon assigned his wife to lead the Maternal Society).

Finally, if we include “women’s organization” to include religious orders where an exclusively women’s organization reports to female leadership (within the organization, with both us and Catholics the heads are then subject to a priesthood leader), then that pushes the oldest women’s organization back over 1000 years further.

None of this is meant to disparage Sarah Kimball’s socially revolutionary innovation. It was indeed one of the first and is one of the largest, we just need to be careful about claiming the oldest spot.