Canaday, Ward Murphey

Ward M. Canaday was a Toledo (Ohio) community leader and chairman of the Board and president of Willys-Overland Motors, Inc. Brother of Frank Canaday, advertising business executive for U.S. Advertising Corporation and Willys-Overland Motors, Inc.

Born in Indiana in 1885, Ward M. Canaday received his B.A. at Harvard University in 1907. He then worked in advertising, pioneering the time payment plan. As advertising director of Willys-Overland in Toledo, Ohio, he organized the U.S. Advertising Corporation and also the Dealers' Finance Company that later merged with Commercial Credit Company (Baltimore, Maryland), of which he was a director. Interested in housing, he promoted passage of the National Housing Act in 1933 and served as the assistant administrator and director of public relations of the Federal Housing Administration. In 1936, he reorganized Willys-Overland and eventually worked hs way up to become its president, from 1950-1963. Active in World War II committees, he also developed and built the military car known as "Jeep." He served in the Toledo community, including trusteeships at the Toledo Museum of Art and at the University of Toledo. He was instrumental in developing the University of Toledo's nuclear engineering department and in constructing the Engineering Science Building there in 1960. He served as trustee and president of the American School of Athens, Greece and took an active role in the support of archaeological expeditions in that country. In 1979, the newly-constructed special collections department of the University of Toledo Libraries, where he had served as president of the Friends, was named in his honor.