Kit Goes to War Transcript

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April 1898, offices of the Toronto Daily Mail and Empire newspaper. EDITOR 1 sits at a desk and with EDITOR 2 standing beside him. Kit is in the room but we don’t see her yet.

[EDITOR 2] Spain is likely to declare war against the Americans any day.

[KIT] If I leave now, I can get to Cuba before the fighting starts!

[EDITOR 1] A lady? Covering a war?

[KIT] I’ve been in dangerous places before.

Flashback scenes of Kit in disguise as a man covering a street gang, talking to poor women, among factory workers etc.

[EDITOR 2] And the readers loved it!

[KIT] Did you know I speak Spanish as well as English and French?

EDITOR 1 is unconvinced.

[EDITOR 1] Your “Woman’s Kingdom” articles are popular, but Cuba is a long way from the women’s pages.

[KIT] You could be the first to send a woman to cover a war!

EDITOR 1 pictures selling piles of newspapers and reluctantly nods.

Scene changes to Kit saying goodbye to her 11-year-old daughter Patsy, who comes up to her armpit, and 13-year-old son Thady, who is up to her ears.

[KIT] Be good!

May 1898, Washington D.C. U.S. Secretary of War, General R.A. ALGER looks through a pile of letters on his desk. He picks up Kit’s application for press accreditation.

[ALGER] War is no place for a lady.

[KIT] But it is just the place for a lady war correspondent!

[ALGER (sighing and gesturing at the letters)] Your famous friends won’t leave me alone. (stamps her papers and hands them over to her, happy to be rid of her) Very well.

June 1898, Tampa, Florida.

[REPORTER 1] Your frock will get muddy in Cuba.

[KIT] It’s a war, not a fashion show.

As Kit walks off, she hears plaintive harmonica music. She sees a very young soldier playing the instrument. He reminds her of her own son, and a tear forms in her eye. She smiles bravely, brushing the tear away.

July 28, 1898. Kit is on board a ship, excited to be finally heading to what used to be the war zone. There’s a nursing sister nearby.

[KIT] Cuba at last!

[NURSE (dubious)] You know the war has almost ended...

[KIT] But the stories haven’t!

Kit visits with wounded soldiers in the hospital and surveys the aftermath of the war, taking notes the whole time. Back in Toronto, EDITOR 2 is chatting with a FRIEND who’s reading the newspaper.

[FRIEND] This is the best reporting I have seen from the Spanish-American war.

[EDITOR 2] That’s our Kit!

Kit, other reporters and some nursing sisters are sailing home.

[REPORTER] It will be good to be home.

[KIT] Indeed.

She is distracted by the nursing sisters’ conversation. She reaches into her bag and pulls out a brown bottle and some rolled up bandages.

[KIT] Please take these. The boys need them more than I do.

[NURSE 2] Oh thank you!

[KIT] Could you use another pair of hands?

She tends to some wounded men, changing bandages and entertaining them with stories. When the ship docks, she says goodbye to the men and nurses. We see her reunited with her somewhat taller kids.

[KIT] Look how you both have grown!

[THADY] Did you see the fighting?

[PATSY] How was it?

[KIT] It was…difficult. I do not wish to be a war correspondent ever again.

She thinks about it for a moment.

[KIT (lost in thought)] Then again…

[NARRATOR] The fearless Kathleen Blake Coleman was usually just called “Kit.” She travelled all over the world to report on all kinds of stories for Toronto newspapers. Before becoming the first woman war correspondent, she was the first full-time women’s page editor in Canada. In 1904, she helped start the Canadian Women’s Press Club. Its aim? “To maintain and improve the status of journalism as a profession for women.”

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