Irish-Canadian newspaper columnist Kathleen Blake "Kit" Coleman is credited with being the first female war correspondent, covering the Spanish-American War for the Toronto Mail in 1898.

Coleman was initially hired during Canada's emerging "New Woman" movement by managing editor Christopher Bunting, who imagined a column dedicated to recipes and fashion tips for his Saturday issue. What emerged over the next 21 years of Coleman’s “Woman’s Kingdom” column was some of the most controversial, creative, and thought-provoking journalism Canada had ever seen. Coleman also served as the first president of the Canadian Women's Press Club, an organization of women journalists.

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Born as Catherine Ferguson in 1856, Kit Coleman was the daughter of a middle-class farmer in the countryside of Galway, Ireland. Despite having little money, her parents ensured she was educated thoroughly in languages and the classics at Loretto Abbey in Rathfarnham and a finishing school in Belgium. She later credited her father for passing on his love of books and nature and her blind mother for nurturing her love of music and teaching her to play different instruments.

After Coleman’s first husband, who was 40 years her senior, passed away in 1884, she emigrated to Canada and worked as a secretary and a housekeeper before writing articles for local magazines, mainly Toronto's Saturday Night. She then moved to Toronto to pursue journalism in 1890.

Coleman’s weekly column, which eventually became the “Woman’s Kingdom” page, appeared for the first time in the Toronto Mail in October 1889. She quickly rebelled against the idea of only writing about fashion and housekeeping and instead voiced her thoughts on politics, business, religion, and science, in addition to dispensing relationship advice. She earned an enviable international reputation and interviewed some of the most prominent personalities of her day, including William Randolph Hearst and Sarah Bernhardt.

Coleman’s greatest success came when she volunteered to go to Cuba to cover the front during the Spanish-American War, despite being told it was an inappropriate role for a woman. She earned her war correspondent accreditation from the United States government and became the first accredited woman war correspondent in the world. She helped establish the Canadian Women's Press Club and wrote on many women’s rights topics over the years until her death in 1915 from pneumonia.