Adelaide Hunter Hoodless, founder of the Women’s Institutes of Canada, published a ground-breaking textbook about domestic science to improve women’s knowledge about sanitation and household management.

Adelaide Sophia Hunter was born on 27 February 1858 in St. George, Brant County, Canada West, to David Hunter (1807-1857) and Jane Hamilton (1815-1888). Little is recorded about her early childhood. Her father died a few months before her birth. She attended a local school and some sources suggest she attended a Ladies’ College, where she met John Hoodless (1854-1923).

After Addie and John married on 15 September 1881 in Cainsville, ON, she changed her name from “Addie” to the more formal Adelaide. The couple moved to Hamilton, ON, where John had begun working with his father in furniture manufacturing. After marriage, Adelaide's lifestyle changed significantly: she went from living and working on her family's farm to leading life as a Victorian lady, complete with servants.

The couple had four children: Edna (1882-1946), Joseph (2884-1929), Muriel (1886-1955), and John (1888-1889). After John died in 1889 of “summer complaint” (campylobacter infection) from impure milk, Adelaide became concerned with the lack of training available to women in the domestic sciences, particularly given the increasing industrialization in urban life. Adelaide’s concerns fuelled her involvement in women’s issues, and she used her subsequent positions with various women’s organizations to further her agenda of increased access to education—especially in the domestic sciences—for women.

In her capacity as President of the Hamilton branch of the Young Woman's Christian Association (YWCA), a role she assumed in 1890, she attended the World's Congress of Representative Women, part of the Columbia Exhibition held in May 1893. She worked with Lady Aberdeen (1857-1939) to establish the National Council of Women of Canada, she became treasurer of the organization and established Hamilton's local branch. In December of 1893, she organized the Toronto meeting of the national YWCA, becoming its first vice-president; by January 1895, she was president of the national organization. In 1894, Adelaide opened Canada's first secular school of domestic science, at the Hamilton YWCA. She then began a lengthy campaign to establish mandatory domestic science courses in all schools. At a meeting of the Farmer's Institute of South Wentworth, ON, on 12 February 1896, Adelaide encouraged women to organize their own self-education. The result was the establishment of the Women's Institute of Saltfleet Township, of which Adelaide was made honourary president. Within a few decades, Women's Institutes had sprung up all over the country.

In 1897, the Ontario Board of Education determined that local school boards could introduce domestic science into the curriculum if they so chose, which provided an opportunity for Adelaide. In 1898, encouraged by Liberal politician George William Ross (1841-1914), she published a textbook, Public Domestic School Science. A supporter of her work, Ross later employed Adelaide to write reports on the teaching of home economics in Ontario, after which the Ontario Board of Education paid for Adelaide to travel around the province to persuade schools to adopt the subject.

In 1900, the Ontario Normal School of Domestic Science opened at the Hamilton YWCA location, with Adelaide as president. Adelaide travelled around Canada and the United States to deliver her message to other schools; however, other experts in the field began commenting on Adelaide's lack of formal education and qualifications.

Adelaide resigned as Treasurer of the National Council of Women in 1901, but became the provincial vice-president in 1902. Also in 1901, she met with James Mills, President of the OAC (Ontario Agricultural College and Experimental Farm), who sought her help to establish a teacher-training school to improve rural education in Eastern Canada. A grant was established in 1902, and Adelaide helped Mills design the program for the Macdonald Institute of Home Economics in Guelph, ON, which opened in 1903.

The early years of the twentieth century were trying for Adelaide: a request to develop a graded curriculum in domestic science was denied and the Ontario Normal School of Domestic Science closed with a deficit in 1903, the same year that she failed to get elected in a large slate for the YWCA's board of directors. By the end of 1903, she suffered a nervous breakdown.

In 1904, she began teaching courses at the Macdonald Institute, which she presented annual lectures for the rest of her life. During her last few years, Adelaide began speaking less frequently as she eclipsed by more qualified individuals. She resigned from the executive of the National Council of Women in 1908.

She was appointed advisor to the Carnegie Technical Schools in Pittsburgh, PA, in 1909. In 1908 she took on the position of reporting on American trade schools for the Ontario government. Her reports lacked recommendations for improvements, and “coherence, failing either to define its subject or to deal adequately with it.”

She was addressing the Women's Canadian Club in Toronto, ON, on 26 February 1910 when she collapsed from heart failure. She was buried in Hamilton, ON. She would later be recognized as a prominent figure of Canadian history, contributing to the evolution of the education system. She was designated a Person of National Historical Significance in 1960. For a more detailed biography, see her entry in the .