Postcard was donated to the McKee Archives by Allen Drysdale, archivist at Beautiful Plains Archives in October 2011. Drysdale received the postcard as part of a larger donation to his archives.
Scope and Content
Item is a colour postcard of the A.E. McKenzie Seed Company in Brandon, MB. The postcard was sent to John Dorset, Elphinstone, MB from his brother Sid (?).
Photograph is looking north northwest from 9th Street and shows the McKenzie Building underconstruction. Many of the workers have posed on the third and fourth floors for the photograph.
Notes
Corresponds with negative 1-2002.3.9.K2.
Repro Restriction
The McKee Archives is the copyright holder for the Stuckey materials.
Postcard was sent to Chuck Wilson's aunt, Mrs. W.M. Wilson in Creelman, SK by the McKenzie Seed Company in 1912. Chuck Wilson found the postcard in some of his aunt's papers in 2009 and mailed it to the McKee Archives.
Scope and Content
Item consists of a colour postcard of the McKenzie Seed Company building located on the west side of the 100 block of 9th Street. The card was sent to Mrs. W.M. Wilson of Creelman, SK to acknowledge her order.
Writing on the front of the card reads: A.E. McKenzie Co., Limited, Seedsmen, Brandon, Man
Photograph shows a group of nine people surrounding an elderly man, likely A.E. McKenzie, who is wearing a black suit. The group appears to be photographed in residential yard.
A.E. McKenzie was born in Wilcox Lake, York County, Ontario in 1870 to F.B. and Maria (Carley) McKenzie. His family came to Manitoba in 1883. He was educated in Brandon, Manitoba and graduated from the Collegiate Institute at age 21. In 1897 he founded the Brandon Seed House. McKenzie was present at the cornerstone-laying ceremony of Brandon College on Juy 13, 1900. From that moment on, he was very involved in the College, first as an interested businessman, and later as a member of its Board of Directors. In 1902, McKenzie married Laura Bell in Port Arthur. They had two daughters, Marjorie Bell and Kathleen. In 1906 the Brandon Seed House was incorporated and from then on was known as the "A.E. McKenzie Co. Ltd.."
McKenzie became a member of the Brandon College Endowment Committee in 1918. The following year he was on the Finance Committee. By 1925, McKenzie was a member of the Board of Directors. In 1928, he was part of a syndicate that advised the Baptist Union that they were developing an endowment plan to provide continuing financial support to the College and talked the Union into providing $10 000 towards the accumulated deficit.
In 1931, McKenzie organized the Brandon Board of Trade to help save Brandon College when the Baptists said they could no longer afford to keep the College. After the By-law failed, he helped to organize the Brandon Citizen’s Campaign to raise enough money so that the College could open the following year.
When the Baptists withdrew support in 1938, McKenzie was one of the central figures on the Brandon Board of Trade that decided to save the College from closure. A representative delegation from Southwestern Manitoba of over 60 men descended upon Premier Bracken’s office to try and convince him to help the College. On June 12, 1938 McKenzie said he would set up a $100 000 endowment to Brandon College. He subsequently raised this amount to $300 000. On August 1, 1938 the Board of Trade launched a campaign to raise $15 000 to match what the government was prepared to offer the College. McKenzie was asked to provide Brandon College with $3000 personally. In September of 1938, McKenzie upped his endowment once more to $500 000. The fund raising worked however, and the chater establishing Brandon College Incorporated was assented to on April 17, 1939. On June 6, 1939 a by-law was again presented to the citizens of Brandon, and fortunately it passed.
In 1941, McKenzie received an honorary L.L.D. from the University of Manitoba. The A.E. McKenzie Foundation was created in 1945 by the provincial government, who had assumed 90% of the A.E. McKenzie Co. Ltd. stock.
On September 25, 1964 McKenzie died at the age of 94. He never retired, but worked full time until two weeks before his death. The funeral was held in the J.R.C. Evans Lecture Theatre. The Arts and Library Building at Brandon College was completed in 1960, and is known as the A.E. McKenzie building, in honour of the man who contributed so much time, effort and financial help to the College during a crucial period in its history.
Custodial History
Records were accessioned by the McKee Archives in 1998. Prior custodial history is unknown.
Scope and Content
A.E. McKenizie’s records in the Brandon College fonds are very useful from an administrative point of view. Because McKenzie was so involved in Brandon College from the very beginning until his death in 1964, it is easy to understand how the College Administration arrived at decisions. There is correspondence between McKenzie and various regarding College and Board of Director business. There are Brandon College financial statements and letters regarding the A.E. McKenzie Foundation. The records contain newspaper clippings, pamphlets and lists of names of members of various Brandon organizations. As well, McKenzie has letters regarding Building Expansion in the 1940’s and minutes of Board of Director meetings. There are also several photographs. One photograph is the 1919 graduation picture of Zoe Hough. Another is tentatively identified as Frances Wolverton, also of the Class of 1919. There are two more photographs of unidentified young women.
The program for the McKenzie Centennial Exhibit describes the materials in this sub-series as a "visual collection of artifacts, printed materials and photographs, 1883-1996, celebrating the centennial of A.E. McKenzie Co. Inc."
Created by current employees and based on research by Nancy McLennan, Sandra Head and J. Lasby Lowes, the McKenzie Centennial Exhibit opened on April 25, 1996. It remained open to the public on every Thursday between 2 to 4 p.m. to the end of June, 1996. Some of the furnishings used in the display were contributed by the Daly House Museum. Located in the McKenzie Building, the exhibit was assembled along the corridors of the building. It contained a variety of materials, such as invoices, pay envelopes, blueprints, documents, furniture and photographs from the one hundred years of McKenzie Seeds’ history.
Following the close of the exhibit, a smaller permanent installation was to be constructed at the McKenzie Building.
Custodial History
In the course of preparing the exhibit, Nancy McLennan took documents from the collection, but failed to make a record of where the documents came from. As a result, these materials have been left in the Centennial sub-series. It proved impossible to return them to their original place in the fonds.
See fonds level description of custodial history of A. E. McKenzie Seed Co. Ltd.
Scope and Content
This sub-series includes the individual descriptions of each exhibit printed on small white envelopes, a guide to the exhibit, a photograph listing for photos used in the various displays and the 1973 Directory of Canadian Chartered Accountants. The sub-series also includes intact files for exhibits 1, 5, 7, 8, 10, 39 and 40, Wholesale Sales Literature, Steele Briggs Seed Co., Scrimping and Spending Big Time, Seed Wagon, Mostly Catalogue Inserts, Letterhead, and For Your Reading Pleasure, respectively.
In addition, a number of booklets made by the creators of the exhibit are also contained within the sub-series. These booklets are primarily a combination of original and reproduced sales literature and catalogues, but also may or may not contain some correspondence, seed packets, clippings and history for McKenzie Seeds, Pike Seeds/Robertson Seeds, Acquisitions (Steele Briggs, Canada Seeds, Brett-Young Seeds), and McFayden/McConnell.
In addition to the above booklets, there are also materials dealing with the catalogues and sales literature of McKenzie Seed Co. suppliers, such as Bodger Seeds, H. Keft from Holland, the Denholm Seed Company, and the Vis Brothers. A number of documents, programs and booklets relating to the seed industry in general, such as the "Black Leaf" Bulletin and a number of documents relating to agriculture in Manitoba are also included.
Storage Location
RG 3 A.E. McKenzie Company fonds
McS 6 Miscellaneous
Related Material
Photographs from the Centennial Exhibition of McKenzie Seeds can be found in Series 5 (Photographs), sub-series 5.9 (Centennial Photos).
This sub-series consists of publications that did not fit into any of the preceding series or sub-series.
Custodial History
See fonds level description of custodial history of A. E. McKenzie Seed Co. Ltd.
Scope and Content
This sub-series includes one copy each of Manitoba Business Top 100 (June 1985), Trade and Commerce Supplement, Brandon (c. 1963) and Manitoba Business (November 1985).
It also includes a Christmas Song book, the book "By Gossip and Myth" by Prof. George MacDowell and a document entitled "Background Information re A.E. McKenzie Seed Co. Ltd."
The following newspaper clippings have been located in the map case drawer #4 located in the archives reading room:
1. $175,000 Gift Set for College from City Man
2. McKenzie Will Leaves House to Arts Centre
3. The Old Alma Mater is Down on Her Knees
4. How to Help the Alma Mater
5. Good Things are "growing" on at McKenzie Seeds (ad)
6. Fire fails to halt work at McKenzie Seeds
7. McKenzie Seeds: new facilities are first in North America
8. A full-page advertisment for McKenzie Seeds from "The Brandon Sun" (September 24, 1971)
Storage Location
RG 3 A.E. McKenzie Company fonds
McS 6 Miscellaneous
The scrapbooks in this sub-series are fragile, particularly the product book. They must be handled with great care.
Custodial History
See fonds level description of custodial history of A. E. McKenzie Seed Co. Ltd.
Scope and Content
This sub-series consists of three scrapbooks. Two of the three contain copies of advertisements for a number of businesses, including McKenzie Seeds, Steele Briggs, Patmore's, Rennie's, and McFayden Seeds. Clippings dealing with a variety of other companies in the seed industry are also included. The third scrapbook contains pictures of various flowers, vegetable, herbs and other seed products in alphabetical order. An inventory is available for the third scrapbook.
Notes
Date(s) of creation, including distribution, publication, etc.:
a) [No title] ad book - 1906-1911
b) "Scrap Book" ad book - 1917-1926
c) [No title] product book - c.1903 - c.1940
Storage Location
RG 3 A.E. McKenzie Company fonds
McS 6 Miscellaneous
