Kit Coleman - Infinite Women

Born: 20 February 1856, Ireland
Died: 16 May 1915
Country most active: Canada, Cuba
Also known as: Catherine Ferguson, Kathleen Blake Coleman, Catherine Willis, Catherine Watkins

This biography is republished from The Dictionary of Irish Biography and was written by Tara Giddens. Shared by permission in line with Creative Commons ‘Attribution’ (CC BY) licencing.

Ferguson, Catherine (Kit Coleman; Kathleen Blake Coleman; other married names Willis; Watkins) (1856–1915), journalist and writer, was born on 20 February 1856 in Castleblakeney, Co. Galway, to Patrick Ferguson and Mary Ferguson (née Burke). Coleman and her older sister, Margaret, were baptised in Geevagh parish as Roman Catholic. With assistance from Mary’s brother, well-known priest Rev. Thomas Nicholas Burke, Coleman attended Loreto Abbey, a convent boarding school in Rathfarnham, Dublin, where her uncle worked as the Loreto Sisters’ spiritual adviser. Later Coleman attended a boarding school in Belgium, although it is not clear who paid for this education; her father, uncle, or even possibly her soon-to-be husband. Coleman married Thomas Willis, a merchant of Holymount, on 19 June 1876 in Killian, Galway; more than two decades her senior, Willis was in his forties at the time of the marriage. They had one daughter, Mary Margaret, who Coleman later claimed had died when she was two years old. It is, however, likely that she is the May May Willis recorded in the 1901 census as the ‘niece-in-law’ living with Coleman’s sister Margaret and her husband John MacDonnell.

It is thought that Thomas Willis either died in 1883 or left his wife and child. Forced to provide for herself, Coleman travelled to England to find work (possibly accounting for her daughter going to live with the MacDonnells). From England, Coleman sailed to Quebec, Canada, embarking on 26 June 1884 (while travelling to Canada, she changed her date of birth to 16 May 1864). Coleman then made her way to Toronto, where she met and married an English travelling salesman, Edward J. Watkins. They had two children, Edward (b. 1885) and Patricia (b. 1888). The marriage did not last long and the couple split sometime between 1888 and 1890 (Watkins may have been already married, making the union with Coleman void). During this time, Coleman adopted the middle name Blake, connecting herself to the prominent Galway family, and began referring to herself as Kathleen Blake Watkins, later shortened to Kathleen Blake. Eventually, after her third marriage, she became known as Kathleen Blake Coleman.

Throughout her career, Coleman identified as Irish-Canadian and her Irish heritage remained an important part of her identity as a woman, journalist and author. The morals, politics and beliefs instilled in her while growing up in Ireland continued to shape her views after she emigrated to Canada. After working at a variety of jobs, Coleman eventually turned to writing short stories for the Toronto Daily Mail and for a weekly magazine, Saturday Night. In 1889, the Toronto Daily Mail (which in 1895 became the Daily Mail and Empire) hired Coleman as a journalist for the weekly column ‘Woman’s kingdom’ and published her first column under the byline ‘Kit’ on 26 October 1889. Coleman used the column to cover a variety of popular and international topics and to challenge late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century social norms. She wrote about some of the most prominent issues of her day – some controversial – including arguing for women’s right to work, Irish politics, business and science. Coleman travelled across North America and Europe writing travel pieces and covering numerous events, including the Chicago World’s Fair (1893) and Queen Victoria’s diamond jubilee (1897); the latter were collected and published as To London for the jubilee (1897).

Coleman worked for the Toronto Daily Mail/Daily Mail and Empire for much of her journalistic career. Chiefly known for her weekly column, Coleman’s fame grew after she became the first accredited woman war correspondent while covering the Spanish-American war (1898). Coleman travelled to Tampa, Florida, in May 1898, but was unable to get to Cuba until after the majority of American forces had withdrawn from the island. She turned her focus to the war’s impact on American soldiers and it was this coverage which brought her widespread fame. Returning from the war, Coleman married a Canadian doctor, Theobald Coleman (1867–1928), on 25 August 1898 in Washington, DC, and after some time living in Copper Cliff, Ontario, the family eventually settled in Hamilton. In 1911, after a disagreement about a pay increase, Coleman quit her column and began freelancing. She was by then one of the most famous journalists in Canada and, along with other Canadian women journalists, helped create the Canadian Women’s Press Club (1904). Her column ‘The pedlar’s pack’ appeared in the monthly national magazine Canada Monthly (originally titled Canada-West Magazine, later shortened to Canada-West) from January 1911 until June 1915, when her last column was posthumously published.

From sharing tales of her adventures in Ireland to working as a war correspondent, travelling across the United States and slumming it in London, Coleman excelled at taking risks and entering new or unique spaces for women to get her story, even if that meant travelling alone (or creating fake travel companions) and dressing up as a man in order to enter private spaces. As ‘Kit’, she created flexible identities in her ‘Woman’s kingdom’ column; she similarly cultivated an identity separate from her journalist persona for her short story writing. She published five short stories in the Canadian Magazine, reaching a wider audience than her column permitted (the stories were titled ‘Oh, my Colleen!’ (1895), ‘Holy Saint Claus’ (1898), ‘The Red Cross nurse: a tale of Majuba Hill (1899), ‘A pair of gray gloves’ (1903) and ‘The gray pup’ (1912)). Coleman’s fiction included themes and topics that aligned with the Canadian Magazine’s agenda to present itself as a modern publication, dealing with local and international issues, while Coleman appealed to a national readership by incorporating popular topics like the Boer war and the emerging ‘new woman’ ideal in her stories. Coleman’s fiction often alluded to her personal life and her own struggles, providing a place where she could experiment with form, discuss modern or provocative topics, and – as she did in ‘Woman’s kingdom’ – process her personal experiences.

While Coleman was not publicly supportive of women voting or first-wave feminism, she still believed women should speak their opinions on any subject, despite their status or class. She encouraged her readers to carve their own path, something Coleman did repeatedly throughout her life and career. The belief that women could, for the most part, be or say what they wanted permeated ‘Woman’s kingdom’. While she had a flair for the dramatic and could contradict herself (sometimes in an attempt to prod readers into responding), her column ran for twenty-two years, evidence of her success as a journalist and of her enduring popularity. She frequently responded to readers’ comments and queries in her column, her true identity concealed by the simple byline ‘Kit’ (the newspaper encouraged readers to guess her identity, and readers often suggested she was in fact a man due to the content of some of her columns). Her writing attracted a widespread audience made up of different classes, nationalities and genders; unlike other women’s columns, it was Coleman’s desire that her column reach readers of all social classes and create a space for both women and men to discuss important topics in print.

In 1915, after contracting pneumonia, Coleman’s health declined; she died on 16 May 1915 and was buried at Hamilton cemetery. She destroyed much of her correspondence and diaries; a small archival collection, including photographs, is held in Library and Archives Canada, Ottawa.