Merrill Denison

Who was Merrill Denison?

Merrill Denison was a Canadian playwright.

Born in Detroit and raised in Ontario, Denison was the son of an American mother, and his father was of American Revolutionary stock.

In 1921, after pursuing studies in architecture, he became Art Director of Hart House Theatre, Toronto. In 1926 he married Jessie Muriel Goggin. Denison soon began to write comedies, some of which were conceived at his summer home in Bon Echo and performed in the Tweed Playhouse in Tweed, Ontario. As author of The Romance of Canada, a highly successful series of historical plays broadcast in 1931 and 1932, he received wide acclaim as a pioneer in radio drama. During the decades that followed he devoted his energies to this field, preparing numerous plays for broadcast in the United States.

Increasingly interested in business history, during the 1950s and 60s Denison wrote several popular histories of Canadian corporations, including Harvest Triumphant: The Story of Massey-Harris.