Profiles

Kathleen Kit Coleman (1856-1915)

August 6, 2021

Born Catherine Ferguson near Galloway, Ireland, her husband’s death prompted her to move to Canada in 1884 where she settled in Toronto. Before marrying she changed her name to Kathleen, but most Canadians knew her as Kit. Her journalism career began in Toronto at the Mail where she became one of the first woman journalists to edit her own section in a Canadian newspaper. Her seven-column page, “Women’s Kingdom,” which she wrote for 21 years included more than the usual women’s pages. It attracted a wide female and male audience, including then Prime Minister Laurier. When the Spanish-American War erupted in 1898, Coleman became one of the first accredited female war correspondents. In 1904 she was one of the16 founding members of the Canadian Women’s Press Club and its first president. Coleman ceased writing for by then MailandEmpire in 1911 after a dispute with its editors. She then syndicated her column to papers across Canada, the first Canadian to do so. She and her third husband, Dr. Theobald Coleman, were living in Hamilton, Ontario when she died suddenly of pneumonia. 




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