Addie Chisholm

Born Adeline Davis in Hamilton, Upper Canada, in 1844, she was widely known as Addie Chisholm during her years as a reformer and writer. She studied at Genesee Wesleyan Seminary in Lima, New York, and later became active in Methodist and temperance work.

In the 1880s she emerged as an important figure in the Ontario Woman’s Christian Temperance Union. She served as the organization’s second president from 1882 to 1888, edited the Woman’s Journal in Ottawa, and wrote tracts and handbooks for WCTU officers and youth leaders. Her best-known book, Why and How: A Hand-Book for the Use of the W.C.T. Unions in Canada, reflects her practical approach to organizing and public advocacy.

She also supported women’s suffrage, seeing the vote as an important step toward prohibition and wider reform. Later known as Lady Foster after her second marriage to politician George E. Foster, she died in Ottawa in 1919 and remains remembered as a determined organizer, speaker, and author in Canadian reform history.