Barbara Howard, artist, was born in Long Branch, Ontario in 1926. She was educated at the Ontario College of Art and St. Martin’s School in London, England. She married Richard Outram in 1957. Together they founded the Gauntlet Press in 1960 in order to publish Richard's poetry, which was illustrated by Barbara's wood engravings. Barbara died in 2002.
Richard Outram , poet, was born in Oshawa, Ontario in 1930. He was educated at Victoria College in the University of Toronto. He is the author of several books of poetry. He married Barbara Howard in 1957. Together he and Barbara founded the Gauntlet Press in 1960, primarily in order to publish Richard's poetry, illustrated by Howard's wood engravings. Richard died in 2005.
Stanley Gray was born in 1944 and grew up in the working class, east end of Montreal. He graduated from McGill University (B.A.) and Balliol College (B. Phil.). Gray taught at McGill University and was one of the main organizers of Opération McGill. He was dismissed from the Political Science department in 1969 when a compromise could not be reached over his political activities. Thereafter, he became a leader of the Front de libération populaire (FLP). When it began to decline in importance after the 1970 provincial election, he was instrumental in forming another organization, the Patriotes québecois. Gray was also a prominent member of the Combined Universities Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. Gray wrote a thesis for Oxford (D. Phil) on Marxist theory with an historical analysis of working class struggles in England, the United States, and Quebec.
Richard Slobodin (1915-2005) was an American anthropologist and a founder of the Department of Anthropology at McMaster University. Born and educated in New York City, he worked extensively from the 1930s onwards as an ethnologist. The chief focus of his ethnological studies were the Dené peoples of the Yukon and Alaska, particularly the Gwich'in (Kutchin). His scholarly interests were broad, however, and he published extensively on a variety of subjects. These publications included significant biographical treatments of pioneering anthropologists <a href="http://holdings.mcmaster.ca/index.php/rivers-w-h-r-2">W.H.R. Rivers</a> and Northcote W. Thomas.
After a brief stint in the United States armed forces during and after the Second World War, he returned to academic life only to fall afoul of Sen. Robert McCarthy's House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUUAC) in the early 1950s. This blacklisting saw him disbarred from academic employment for a period of seven years, during which time he worked a variety of jobs to support himself before eventually completing his Ph.D. in 1959. He spent the next four years working various academic appointments in the United States while seeking entry to Canada, which repeatedly denied him a visa owing to his supposed Marxist connections.
He finally was admitted to Canada in 1964, accepting an academic appointment at McMaster University, and he became a Canadian citizen in 1970. During the 1960s and 1970s Slobodin continued extensive fieldwork in the Arctic while also playing an instrumental role in developing the faculty of anthropology at McMaster, of which he was a co-founder. In 1981, he was forced to accept compulsory retirement owing to his age, but remained active in the United Church and the New Democratic Party while maintaining voluminous correspondence with friends and fellow scholars around the world. He died in 2005 at the age of 89.
J. N. (Pat) Kelly served as public relations adviser to the Steel Company of Canada (Stelco) during the 1946 strike. He lived with Hugh Hilton, President of the Company, at the Royal Connaught Hotel during the strike.
Claire Culhane (née Eglin) was born on 2 September 1918 into a Russian-Jewish immigrant family in Montreal. She later married Gerry Culhane, a member of the Communist Party and trade-union activist but the marriage did not last. In 1967-1968 Culhane worked as an advisor and hospital administrator with the Canadian Anti-Tuberculosis Hospital in Quang Ngai, South Vietnam. Upon her return to Canada, she became very involved in peace activism. In 1976 she was appointed a member of the Citizens Advisory Committee for British Columbia Penitentiaries. An author, one of her books was titled Why Is Canada in Vietnam? She died on 28 April 1996 in Vancouver.
John Wilson Bengough, cartoonist, was born on 7 April 1851 in Toronto and educated in the Whitby district and grammar schools. In 1873 he founded Grip, a humorous weekly. He provided cartoons for the publication as well as articles and poems for twenty years. In 1892 he became the cartoonist of the Montreal Star before moving on to the Toronto Globe. His cartoons also appeared in the Morning Chronicle in London, England. An advocate of the single tax, prohibition and free trade, Bengough wrote a number of political pamphlets such as The Gin Miller Primer (1898). He also published two books of poetry, Motley: Verses Grave and Gay (1895) and In Many Keys (1902). Lecturing was another of Bengough's many skills, and he made several lectures tours across Canada and the United States giving "Chalk Talks"; in 1909 he made a lecture tour of Australia and New Zealand.
Samuel Beckett was an Irish author and playwright, born at Foxrock, near Dublin on 13 April 1906. He was educated at Portora Royal School, Enniskillen, and at Trinity College, Dublin, where he read English, French, and Italian. He lived mainly in France from 1932 onwards. His most famous play, En attendant Godot was published in 1952. He was awarded the Nobel prize for literature in 1969. He died in Paris on 22 December 1989
William Burton Hurd was born in Brockville, Ontario in 1894. He was a Rhodes scholar, a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, and president of the Canadian Political Economy Association. In 1921 he became Professor of Political Economy at Brandon College and was appointed Dean of Arts in 1928. He came to McMaster University as Professor of Political Economy in 1935, became Associate Dean of Arts in 1939, and chaired the Department of Political Economy from 1947 to 1949. A regular contributor to economic, political, and banking periodicals, he was an expert on population problems and the author of several books, including Origin, Birthplace, Nationality and Language of the Canadian People and Racial Origins and Nativity of the Canadian People.
Anthony Burgess, novelist, critic, and composer, was born John Anthony Burgess Wilson on 25 February 1917 in Manchester. He was educated at the University of Manchester. His A Clockwork Orange was published in 1962 and made into a film by Stanley Kubrick in 1971. He died in November 1993 in London, England.
John Coulter, playwright, was born on 12 February 1888 in Belfast, Northern Ireland. He was educated at the School of Art in Belfast and at the University of Manchester. He taught English and art from 1913-1919 before moving to London to become a drama critic and playwright for sixteen years. In London, he met his Canadian wife, the poet, Olive Clare Primrose, and moved with her to Canada in 1936. In later years they divided their time between Ireland and Canada. His most famous work is his trilogy of plays about Louis Riel, published 1950-1960. He died on 1 December 1980. There is a much more comprehensive biography available in Library Research News 6, no. 2 (Autumn 1982).
Gabriel Fielding was the pen name of Alan G. Barnsley, physician, educator and author, who was born on 25 March 1916 in Hexham, Northumberland. He was educated at Trinity College, Dublin and St. George's Hospital, London. His best known novel is The Birthday King (1962), the story of a Jewish-Catholic family living in Nazi Germany, which won the W. H. Smith Award. In 1966 Barnsley moved to the United States where he became Professor of English at Washington State University until 1981. He died in Bellevue, Washington on 27 November 1986.
E. Pauline Johnson, poet and platform entertainer, was born on the Six Nations Reserve near Brantford, Canada West (Ontario). Her poems first appeared in the New York magazine, Gems of Poetry, and thereafter in numerous British and North American journals. Her books include The White Wampum (1895), Canadian Born (1903), Flint and Feather (1912), Legends of Vancouver (1911), The Shagganappi (1912), and The Moccasin Maker (1913). She died at Vancouver on 7 March 1913.
André Girard, artist, was born on 25 May 1901 in Chinon, France and educated at Ecole Nationale des Arts Decoratif and Ecole Nationale des Beaux Arts. He studied with George Rouault and Pierre Bonnard. In 1939 he came to the United States to paint murals for the French Pavilion at the World's Fair. He returned to France and served with the Resistance during World War II. He settled in the United States after the war where he painted windows and murals for many American churches. He was also a serigrapher. Girard developed a new technique for painting on film. He died on 2 September 1968 in Nyack, New York. Additional biographical material on Girard is contained in the master file, including an article by William Ready.
Albert Mansbridge was born in Gloucester on 10 January 1876 and educated at the Battersea Grammar School. He founded the Workers' Educational Association in 1903 and remained First Secretary until 1915, extending its operations to Australia.
Until his death at Torquay on 22 August 1952, Mansbridge was associated with numerous socialist, co-operative, and church organizations, although education always remained his main interest. In his later years he was President of the World Association for Adult Education. His publications include An Adventure in Working Class Education (1920) and his autobiography, The Trodden Road (1940).
Walter McRaye, as he called himself, lecturer and entertainer, was born in Merrickville, Ontario on 31 December 1876. He was the great grandson of Major Thomas Smyth, founder of Smiths Falls. He acquired through his lectures and informal talks the sobriquet "The Apostle of Canadianism". McRaye toured with E. Pauline Johnson in Canada, Britain and the United States from 1901 to 1909. He often recited the Habitant poetry of Dr. W. H. Drummond. He wrote his memoirs, Town Hall Tonight, in 1929. Pauline Johnson and Her Friends was published posthumously in 1947. He died in 1946.
Edward Manning Saunders, clergyman and historian, was born in the Annapolis Valley of Nova Scotia on 20 December 1829. He was educated at the Newton Institute, Mass. He was appointed pastor at the first Baptist church in Halifax in 1867. His published works include Three Premiers of Nova Scotia (1909) and The Life and Letters of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles Tupper (1916). He died in Toronto on 15 March in the same year as the Tupper book was published.
Margaret Marshall Saunders was born on 13 April 1861 in Milton, Nova Scotia. She was educated at an Edinburgh, Scotland finishing school, followed by a year in France. She wrote about this experience in Esther de Warren: The Story of a Mid-Victorian Maiden (1927). This was her last published work and her personal favourite. Her most successful book was Beautiful Joe: The Autobiography of a Dog (1893). Saunders was awarded an honorary M.A. from Acadia University in 1911. For the last thirty-three years of her life she lived in Toronto. She died on 15 February 1947.
Jane Shen was active as a poet during the period from approximately 1969 to 1971 when she was a student at the University of Toronto. Her poems were published in Alphabet, Catalyst and Descant, among others, and were also read on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's Anthology series.
