Hoodless, Adelaide (1857–1910)

Canadian welfare reformer. Born Adelaide Sophia Hunter in Brantford, Ontario, Canada, on February 27, 1857; died in Toronto, Ontario, on February 26, 1910; married John Hoodless (a businessman), in 1881; children: four (perhaps more).

Adelaide Hoodless' interest in raising the standard of living among rural women in Canada was the result of a family tragedy. She was born Adelaide Sophia Hunter in 1857 and raised on a farm in Brantford, Ontario, one of 12 children. At age 24, she married John Hoodless, moved to Hamilton, and began a family. Following the death of her son from drinking contaminated milk in 1889, Adelaide began a campaign for improved home conditions and education for expectant mothers in nutrition, sanitation, and housekeeping. When she was ignored by authorities, she took matters into her own hands, teaching classes at the Hamilton Young Women's Christian Association (YWCA). After becoming president of Hamilton's YWCA in 1892, she started a school of domestic science.

Unable to secure funding from the Ontario government to continue her work, Hoodless appealed to William Macdonald, a tobacco magnate, who donated money to build the Macdonald Institute, which became part of the Ontario Agricultural Institute at Guelph in 1904. Hoodless continued to teach and lecture on domestic science. One of her talks before the Farmers' Institute at Stoney Creek, in which she suggested the establishment of a similar forum for women, resulted in the formation of the women's department of the Farmers' Institute (later renamed The Women's Institute of Stoney Creek). Established in 1897 as a rural society whose objective was to promote the knowledge of home economics and child care, it served as a model for similar rural societies which began springing up throughout the world. Eventually the societies all affiliated with the Associated Country Women of the World, perhaps the largest nonpolitical women's association ever, with 8 million members in 283 societies in 68 countries. Adelaide Hoodless died on February 26, 1910, while on a fund-raising campaign at St. Margaret's College in Toronto. In 1911, John Hoodless placed the cornerstone on the Hoodless Memorial School at 71 Maplewood Avenue in Hamilton. The elementary school, now known as the Adelaide Hoodless School, celebrated its 75th anniversary in 1986. The Federal Women's Institutes of Canada also honored Hoodless by purchasing her birthplace and transforming it into a historic site in 1967.