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Businessman, Advertising Executive
Ward Canaday (b.12-12-1885 d. 2-27-1976) , a native of New Castle, IN, made his mark in the world as a businessman and advertising executive who not only made money but spent it in ways to enhance the lives of others, supporting arts and educational programs, and donating buildings to both Harvard University and Bryn Mawr College. His first "business" experience was as a young boy when he sold strawberries door to door in New Castle. He very much wanted a rifle and reasoned that he could charge each customer a penny or two extra for the berries and eventually get enough money to make the purchase. When his father found out, Ward had to go back to each person, return the money, and apologize--a lesson in integrity that he remembered the rest of his life. He graduated from New Castle High School and the University of Colorado, then continued his education at Harvard where he graduated cum laude in 1907. During his summer vacations in college he did some reporting for The Courier, a local newspaper in New Castle, where he learned the rudiments of publicity and advertising. He also worked for another local business the Hoosier Kitchen Cabinet Company, and he went to work for them full-time after his graduation. The Hoosier was a pioneer in the area of time-payment, and Ward would go on to apply this principle in the automobile industry. His success in advertising at the Hoosier caught the attention of the Willys Overland Company and he went to work for them as advertising director in 1916, relocating to Toledo, Ohio. After several years with Willys Overland he had formed his own company, the United States Advertising Company, which was hired to do the advertising campaign for President Franklin Roosevelt's nation-wide housing program in 1934. He was responsible for organizing local committees in almost every state and county to cooperate with the building and supply companies, contractors, newspapers, labor unions, banks and real estate exchanges to inform and enlist the interest of home owners to utilize the various programs of the housing act and put people back to work. He served as assistant administrator and director of public relations for the Federal Housing Administration through 1935. During World War II he returned to Willys Overland as president and chairman. The company was the first to be converted entirely to war production and, during the war years, developed and produced the military jeep. Following the war he left Willys-Overland, but kept the name Overland Corporation as an investment firm, which later merged with the State Street Investment Corporation of Boston. In 1948 President Truman appointed him chairman of the United States section of the Caribbean Commission, and in 1949 he appointed him as one of the three directors of the Virgin Islands Corporation, an economic development agency. This appointment was renewed in 1953 by President Eisenhower. Having been successful in a financial way, Ward Canaday was able to support endeavors that would better the lives of others. He had an interest in Greek archaeology and financed several excavations, including the ancient stoa of Attalos, a building near the Athens marketplace. When that site was dedicated as a museum in 1956, Ward and his wife were the personal representatives of President Eisenhower to the event and were the guests of the king and queen of Greece. At the time of his death he was chairman emeritus of the American School of Classical Studies in Athens. He donated a wing to the Toledo Art Museum and the Canaday Library building to Bryn Mawr College. In addition to donating a residence hall to Harvard University, he also endowed there a Japanese Fund for Peaceful Development that helps finance study in America by Japanese. He also sponsored a chair at Harvard "to encourage undergraduates to a broad literary acquaintance with the history of human culture."
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