"Head of the Publishing Side of the Business": Ellen Elliott of the Macmillan Company of Canada‪.‬

From 1905 to 1980, the Macmillan Company of Canada was a crucial catalyst in the shaping of Canada's literary heritage. Macmillan championed a group of leading Canadian authors including Stephen Leacock, Mazo de la Roche, Grey Owl, Hugh MacLennan, Adele Wiseman, and many others. The company also launched some of Canada's enduring classics, such as Frederick Philip Grove's In Search of Myself (1946), W.O. Mitchell's Who Has Seen the Wind (1947), and Ethel Wilson's Swamp Angel (1954). Ellen Elliott was secretary and director of Macmillan between 1937 and 1947 and helped manage the flagship Canadian book publisher during the difficult years of the Second World War. During the war years, Elliott worked under president Robert Huckvale, a skilled accountant. Huckvale, however, was not a strong leader, and Elliott functioned as "head of the publishing side of the business." (2) At a time when local publishers struggled with inadequate resources, economic instability, and national unrest, Elliott worked tirelessly to sustain the company and build its roster of writers. Among the first women to hold a senior position in Canadian publishing, she helped consolidate the growth of Macmillan from a branch-plant operation to a mature publishing house and worked closely with writers Irene Baird, Audrey Alexandra Brown, Mona Gould, Frederick Philip Grove, W.O. Mitchell, P.K. Page, and E.J. Pratt, for example. After the war, in 1946, John Morgan Gray was appointed general manager and the following year Elliott was forced to leave her position.