Collection F2967 - MacKay-Dexter correspondence collection

Born at Ottawa, Ontario on 21 May 1926, son of Alice and Douglas MacKay, he was raised in Winnipeg and attended St. John’s-Ravenscourt School and the University of Manitoba. He worked as a newspaper reporter for the Winnipeg Tribune, Canadian Press, and the Winnipeg Free Press, later serving as a correspondent for the Free Press in Ottawa and Washington, DC. In 1951 he was the first Canadian awarded a Nieman Fellowship to Harvard University. From 1954 to 1959 he was Managing Editor of the Reader’s Digest Canadian Edition, at Montreal, then was Executive Editor of the Winnipeg Free Press from 1959 to 1967. In the latter year he became Vice-President of the International Nickel Company of Canada, at Toronto, retiring in 1982. He died at Winnipeg on 21 December 2001.

Alexander Grant Dexter was born in St. Andrews, Manitoba on February 3, 1896. Educated at the Collegiate Institute in Hamilton, Ontario, and at Brandon College, Manitoba, he joined the staff of the "Winnipeg Free Press" in 1912, and after serving in WWI from 1915-1919, he became the Ottawa Correspondent for the "Free Press" in 1923. He was the "Free Press' correspondent in London, England, for 2 years, returning to Ottawa in 1938. For some years he was Canadian correspondent for the "Manchester Guardian" and other British and American publications. He became Associate Editor of the "Free Press" in 1944, and was Executive Editor from 1946 to 1948, becoming Editor in 1948. Awarded the Cabot Medal for journalism by Columbia University in 1946, he was author of "Canada and the Building of the Post-War World," 1946, and also numerous pamphlets. He collaborated in various studies dealing with Canadian problems. He died on December 12, 1961, in Winnipeg.