Policy and Procedures Manual - Update

              " A Nation cannot rise above the level of its homes, therefore, we women must work and
saury together to raise our homes to the highest level.""' These are the words of Adelaide Hunter
Hoodless, who is recognised by the Women's Institutes as its founder. A lorry ideal that was taken
up by the new women'? movement. " The Women's Instimtes of Saltfleet.'* This was the start of a
new organization that would flourish, in response to the needs and issues of women. The
following will be and assessment of the roles played by the Women's Instimtes in Western Canada.
Adelaide Hunter was born in Ontario in 1858. It was only alter she married John
Hoodless and had her family That she became active outside the home. It was tlirough her
involvement with the YMCA. and the National Council of Women of Canada, that she became
concerned with the lack of women's organizations. She was also concerned about the effects that
urbanization and industrialization had on the traditional roles of women. She thought that when
women sought employment outside their homes, it went against their roies of wives and mothers,
and that the introduction of science into the household duties would rejuvenate that role. Home
economic education, was a cause That Adelaide Hunter Hoodless was committed to. Her passion
for her cause stemmed in pan from personal tragedy, her youngest son died of drinking
unpasteurized millr. This, she felt, necessitated training in new methods of preservation and
sanitation. The result was. one of her many speeches that was the spark, that started the Women's
Instimtes.
Bossetti, Shelly Anne Marie. The Rural Wromen's University: Women's Institute in Alberta
from 1909- 1940 ( Edmonton, Department of Educational Foundations 1988), 54
' Prentice, Alison. Pauls Bourne, et. al. ed.. Canadian Women: a History ( Toronto. Harcourt
Brace Jovanovich 1988). 183
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