In November 1966, McGuinness was hired as vice-president to the Brandon Sun. He moved to Brandon with his family and had a career with the paper until his death in 2011. During his years with the Sun, McGuinness wrote a tri-weekly “Sunbeams” (sometimes spelled “Sun Beams”) column using the nom-de-plume F.A. [Fifth And] Rosser. Sunbeams was similar to McGuinness’ “Lighthouse” column for The Medicine Hat News; commenting on a variety of current events, Sunbeams also included book reviews, local events, and reminiscences.
Upon his retirement in January 1987, McGuinness was made publisher emeritus of the Brandon Sun. A week after his retirement, he began writing a new column for the Sun, called the “Diary.” Initially a bi-weekly column, which was made into a weekly column in 2009, McGuinness continued writing the “Diary” until his hospitalization in 2010. The Diary column was primarily a historical retrospective of Brandon, although it also touched on broader topics of interest to McGuinness during the time period.
Custodial History
Accession 1-2015 contains records created and collected over the course of McGuinness’ career as a newspaper journalist and freelance writer. The Estate of Fred McGuinness donated the materials to the SJ McKee Archives circa 2011. The Archives accessioned the records in 2015.
Scope and Content
The subseries contains records created and collected by Fred McGuinness during his time as a journalist, editor, and freelance writer with the Brandon Sun. The records consist of scrapbooks of Sunbeams columns, Sunbeam drafts, Diary drafts, article proofs, column research, and correspondence.
Notes
Readers’ correspondence pertaining to McGuinness’ time with the Brandon Sun can be found in Fred McGuinness’ personal papers, subseries McG 1.2 Correspondence. Possible research for his Sunbeam and Diary columns may be found in McG 4.1 Local history research and McG 2.3 Neighborly News (File 3)
Accruals
Closed
Finding Aid
A file level inventory is available
Storage Location
2015 accessions
Arrangement
Arrangement was artificially created by the Archives. Subseries has been re-arranged according to publication period
A.E. McKenzie was involved with Brandon College from its very beginnings. He was present at the cornerstone-laying ceremony of the Brandon College Building in July of 1900; he became a member of the Brandon College Endowment Committee in 1918; the following year he was on the Finance Committee. By the mid-1920's, he was a member of the Board of Directors of the College. In 1928, he was part of a group that convinced the Baptist Union of Western Canada, the principal funding body for the College, to provide money towards reducing the College’s accumulated deficit. McKenzie and other members of the College Board had advised the Union that they were developing an endowment plan to provide continuing financial support for Brandon College.
In 1931. Mr. McKenzie organized the Brandon Board of Trade to help save the College when the Baptist Union indicated its intention to withdraw financial support to the College. When efforts to have the City of Brandon provide finacial resources to the College failed, A.E. McKenzie organized the Brandon Citizen's Campaign to raise enough money to enable the College to open the next year.
In 1938, when the Baptist Union did withdrew support from the College, McKenzie offered to establish a $100,000 endowment, which he later raised to $300,000, to ensure the continuation of the College. On August 1 of the same year, the Board of Trade, of which McKenzie was a member, set out to raise $15,000 to match the offer the government had made to the College. In September 1938, McKenzie increased his endowment again, this time to $500,000. As a result, of McKenzie's endowment and the fundraising efforts of the Board of Trade the charter establishing Brandon College Incorporated was approved on April 17, 1939.
Custodial History
See fonds level description of custodial history of A.E. McKenzie Seed Co. Ltd.
Scope and Content
This sub-series includes correspondence between McKenzie and Lowes with various government officials - Duff Roblin, Hon. George Johnson, Hon. Stewart E. McLean and Comptroller-General George D. Iliffe. There is also correspondence with the company lawyer, William Johnston. Documents within the series consist of the Act to Incorporate Brandon College, Inc. and Bill 86, as well as an indenture and an agreement between C.S. Eaton, G.C. Edwards, A.E. McKenzie, D.H. Hudson and E.J. Tarr. There are also a number of documents written by McKenzie that were presented to the Brandon College Board of Directors. Brandon College Inc. resolutions regarding the McKenzie Foundation are also included.
The sub-series has one sub sub series: MG 5 1.1.1 History of Brandon College Inc.
The Brandon Board of Trade was founded in 1883 to promote business activity and economic expansion in Brandon. Aside from these records, no other records of the Board of Trade are known to exist.
Custodial History
See fonds level description of custodial history of A.E. McKenzie Seed Co. Ltd.
Scope and Content
Sub-series includes the intervention of the Board in the 1910 municipal election in Brandon and a listing of the standing committee for 1911. The sub-series also includes a letter to Mr. Blanchard from A.E. McKenzie and a financial statement for the Brandon Commercial Bureau.
These records were produced between 1987 and 1988, the researching and writing period for The Wheat City: A Pictorial History of Brandon monograph. Published in 1988 by Western Producer Books (Saskatoon, Saskatchewan), The Wheat City is a 117-page soft cover book, containing black and white images.
Western Producer Books pitched the book’s concept to Fred McGuinness in the fall of 1987. This book was part of the publisher’s “city series” which focused on smaller cities such as Medicine Hat and Prince Albert. It was estimated that the book would contain a 6,000-word introduction followed by approximately 80 archival photographs of Brandon spanning from early settlement to the late 1950s/early 1960s.
Brandon University history major Pam Svistovski worked as McGuinness’ research assistant and McGuinness obtained images for the book from his own personal collection, the Brandon Sun, Lawrence Stuckey, the Archives of Manitoba, and the Western Pictorial Index.
Custodial History
Records were collected and created by McGuinness during the writing phase of the monograph The Wheat City. The materials were donated to the SJ McKee Archives by the Estate of Fred McGuinness circa 2011. The Archives accessioned the records in 2015.
Scope and Content
The subseries consists of textual records and photographs created and collected during the production of the monograph The Wheat City. It includes correspondence, newspapers articles, drafts and black and white photographs from the Archives of Manitoba, Western Canada Pictorial Index, and Illustrated Souvenir of Brandon.
Notes
Information in the history/biography was obtained from The Wheat City’s acknowledgements and a letter to Mr. Fred McGuinness from Western Producer Books, dated September 24, 1987 (McG 5.6, File 11)
Where known, archival reference numbers for photographs obtained from the Archives of Manitoba and the Western Canada Pictorial Index and considered/used in The Wheat City have been provided in the item level description
Accruals
Closed
Repro Restriction
Images published in the monograph and stored in files copyright protected by their respective organizations
Finding Aid
A file level inventory is available
Storage Location
2015 accessions
Related Material
Clarence Hopkin collection
Lawrence Stuckey collection
Jack Stothard collection
Fred McGuinness would write/publish about a topic in a number of forums. Therefore, it is possible research materials pertaining to this monograph may be found in the Fred McGuinness collection subseries: Correspondence (McG 1.2), Brandon Sun (McG 2.2) Miscellaneous freelance (McG 3.2), Local history research (McG 4.1), Manitoba: The Province & The People (McG 5.4), and Manitoba Enterprise (McG 5.5)
Arrangement
Arrangement was artificially created by the Archives. Subseries has been re-arranged according to picture sources
