Price, Roberta MacAdams (1881–1959)

Canadian politician who was one of the first two women elected to the legislature in the British Empire. Name variations: Roberta MacAdams. Born Roberta Catherine MacAdams on July 21, 1881, in Sarnia, Ontario, Canada; died on December 16, 1959, in Calgary, Alberta, Canada; graduated from the Macdonald Institute, 1911; married Harvey Stinson Price, on September 21, 1920; children: Robert.

Became one of the first two women elected to a legislature in Canada and in the British Empire (1917); was the first woman to introduce legislation in the British Empire (1918).

Born in Sarnia, Ontario, Canada, in 1881, Roberta MacAdams Price later studied domestic science at the Macdonald Institute in Guelph, Ontario, graduating in 1911. She then moved to Edmonton, Alberta, where she lectured women farmers on food and cookery, and offered information on emerging women's institutes as an employee of the Alberta Department of Agriculture. A year later Price established cooking classes throughout the city as superintendent of domestic science for the Edmonton Public School Board.

Women in the province of Alberta won the right to vote in 1916, and that same year, during World War I, Price enlisted in the Canadian Army Medical Corps. She was commissioned as a lieutenant and ran the kitchen of the Ontario Military Hospital in Orpington, England. In 1917, the Alberta Military Representation Act created two Soldiers' Representatives seats in the Alberta Legislature, and 20 men declared their candidacies. To offset the lack of newly enfranchised women in the running, Beatrice Nasmyth , publicity secretary for the Alberta agent general, and Nell Dennis convinced Price to run for one of the seats. Her campaign slogan, developed by Nasmyth and Dennis, was "Give one vote to the man of your choice and the other to the sister."

More than 25,000 ballots were cast for the two seats in the August 1917 election, with Price garnering 4,023 votes—enough to make her the second woman elected to a legislature within the British Empire. The first was Louise McKinney , who had won election to her seat in the Alberta Legislature a month earlier, and both Price and McKinney took their oaths of office on February 7, 1918. The following day, Price introduced a piece of legislation providing for the incorporation of the War Veterans' Next-of-Kin Association. In proposing the plan, she became the first woman to introduce legislation in the British Empire.

Price served in the legislature until 1921, choosing not to seek re-election after her 1920 marriage to Harvey Stinson Price. The couple later moved to Calgary, Alberta, where she raised her son and was active in women's organizations and educational institutions. Price died on December 16, 1959. Eight years later, in honor of her achievements and prominence, her portrait was presented to the Alberta Legislature.

Howard Gofstein , freelance writer, Oak Park, Michigan