Dallas Smythe; Dallas Walker Smythe; Dallas W. Smythe; Smythe, Dallas W.

Smythe, Dallas Walker, 1907-1992  

Descriptive Summary

Scope and Content

Dallas Smythe sent Merton a copy of his conference, entitled "Religion and the Mass Media". Smythe seems to have known Merton's friend, Wilbur H. (Ping) Ferry, who may have asked Smythe to write Merton. Ferry also sent Smythe a copy of Merton's "Cold War Letters". Merton mentions to Smythe his hopefulness for the cause of peace from the opening speech of the Second Vatican Council.

Biography

Sociologist and economist Dallas Walker Smythe was born in Regina, Saskatchewan, and moved to the United States in 1918. He was a life-long pacifist. In the late 1930's, he became a civil servant in Washington, D.C. In 1948, he joined the new Institute of Communications Research at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. It is from here, he writes to Merton and Merton responds. (Source: Gourlie, Michael; Caitlin Webster; Frances Fournier; and Enid Britt. "Dallas Smythe fonds". Jan. 1998. Website of Simon Fraser University Archives. Accessed, 9 May 2006: Bellarmine University Library. ‹http://www.sfu.ca/archives/F-16/F-16fonds.html›.)

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Related Information and Links

See also Cold War Letters #107 published in Witness to Freedom, pp. 67-68; and see also the "Ferry, Wilbur Hugh" file.

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