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 “You have to know the past to understand the present.”
– Carl Sagan, Astronomer
As the Great Depression moved into its fifth year, assuming its beginning is marked by the worldwide stock market crash in October 1929, unemployment in Canada would peak at 27 percent. More than one in five Canadians relied on government relief and food handouts for survival. Lou Cahill, at the age of 20, while struggling through like everyone else, was also fulfilling his early ambition and, some weeks, making as much as $3.
He had made it as a newspaperman, a freelance reporter in his hometown of St. Catharines, stringing stories as far as Buffalo, Detroit and Toronto. 1934 was an important year in Canadian history, as the country transformed itself to fight its way out of the Depression. Both the Bank of Canada and the Canadian Radio Broadcasting Commission were established to make the government larger, better able to persuade the economy. This is also the year that Cahill the newspaperman made the acquaintance of a Paul Trenholm, a public relations pioneer out of New York City.
Trenholm was responsible for the Four Nations Celebration (France, Great Britain, United States and Canada) being held in the Niagara region. For two and half months, Cahill researched and prepared material to attract international media coverage. At an early age, three of what would become his career passion converged: the newspaper, heritage and public relations – with waterways, Cahill’s fourth, just on the horizon.
“In the 1930s, public relations was relatively little known in Canada but the Trenholm experience did stimulate my interest and guided my future, I believe,” said Cahill.
Cahill went on to build one of Ontario’s first and largest public counsel firms in Ontario – if not Canada – and worked closely with many projects involving the Welland Canal. In 1974, Cahill successfully initiated a campaign to have stamps printed to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the canal, using the face of William Hamilton Merritt (four other Canadian stamps bear Cahill’s influence).
Cahill’s OEB public relations firm not only organized the first live television broadcast in Canada, it pioneered many of the industry’s basic principles. Through mergers and acquisitions, eventually, Cahill co-founded what was the world’s largest PR firm, called Worldcom Public Relations Group. His achievements both professional and through the community are etched by his 25 notable awards. He was actually the inaugural recipient of four of those awards. Another was named after him and yet another he received from Pope John Paul II, known as the Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice, which is the highest honour that can be bestowed upon a lay person.
To the printing industry, arguably Cahill’s most important recognition came in 1999 when the Ontario Community Newspaper Association (representing 256 papers) made him an Honourary Life Member. Much of this title came from Cahill’s founding of the Mackenize Printery & Newspaper Museum (1991) in Queenstone, Ontario, which is built in the former publishing home of rebel editor William Lyon Mackenzie – seen as the person who first forced responsibility into the Canadian government. Mackenzie first printed the The Colonial Advocate on May 18, 1824, which would serve as his political vehicle throughout Upper Canada.
And so began an interesting circle through the past, present and future, all connected within six degrees of separation to Lou Cahill. When the former Canadian Prime Minister Mackenzie King, grandson of Mackenzie, took power, he nationalized the Bank of Canada in 1937 (as well as the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation). King, in fact, was on hand for the initial opening of the restored home of his grandfather, in 1938, with the cooperation of The Niagara Parks Commission. Cahill was responsible for developing this landmark into the Printery. Cahill would work on several PR projects with the Bank, perhaps most notably throughout World War II when he developed the Victory Loan Campaign.
The future of the printing industry in Canada will not move forward without learning from the past work of Cahill, as he reminds the public and printers alike of the power of newspapers. This is a crucial hub for the printed medium as technologies like e-ink and the internet threatens the viability of his medium. It is a lesson that Cahill’s son took to heart, working as a freelance photographer for the St. Catharines Standard newspaper. |
