User:Rayargyle/Ray Argyle

Ray Argyle (born September 4, 1939) is a Canadian author and media analyst who has worked as a journalist, publishing executive and advisor to leaders in business and the public sector.

He was born in Manitoba and educated in British Columbia. He pursued a career as a journalist with United Press International and the old Toronto Telegram and worked for twenty years as a public relations consultant

Argyle has served as a member of the Board of Trustees of the McMichael Canadian Art Collection in Kleinburg, Ont., and the Scarborough Board of Education. He is Secretary-Treasurer of the Foundation for the Advancement of Canadian Letters (FACL) and is a member of the the Board of the Book and Periodical Council. He is the only Canadian to have been elected a Fellow of the International Public Relations Association.

Argyle founded Argyle Communications Inc. in 1979 and pioneered the use of public opinion polling in developing corporate public relations strategies. The company became part of The Environics Group in 2001.

He was associated with the Liberal Party of Canada and managed campaigns for several successful federal and provincial candidates.

Argyle is author of several books. "Turning Points: the Campaigns that Changed Canada" (White Knight, 2004) is an examination of the pivotal political campaigns since Confederation.

In "Scott Joplin and the Age of Ragtime" (McFarland Publishing, 2009) Argyle assesses the rise of ragtime and other cultural changes of the early 20th century, in the context of new technologies that facilitated the development of modern mass culture. In "The Boy in the Picture" (Dundurn Press, 2010)Argyle explores a little known facet of Canadian history with the story of young Edward Mallandaine. He is the boy seen in the photograph of the driving of the Last Spike of the Canadian Pacific Railway in 1885

"Joey Smallwood: Schemer and Dreamer" (Dundurn Press, 2012) draws on previously unpublished archival records in telling the story of the first Premier of Newfoundland and Labrador and Canada's last "Father of Confederation."

His most recent work is "The Paris Game: Charles de Gaulle, the Liberation of Paris, and the Gamble that Won France' (Dundurn Press, 2014).

The Toronto Globe and Mail has described Argyle as "an author who writes exceptionally fasacinating stories on social and cultural change." The Kingston, Ont., Whig-Standard called him : "a seasoned writer (and) eminent social historian."

Argyle is a contributor to such publications as Reader’s Digest, Canada's History (formerly The Beaver) and The National Post.

Argyle lives in Toronto and Kingston, Ontario. He blogs at www.wildaboutwriting.co and his web site is www.rayargyle.com.Twitter @rayargyle.