18 Facts About Erwin Canham

Erwin Dain Canham was an American journalist and author.

Erwin Canham was best known for his work as the longest-serving editor of The Christian Science Monitor.

Erwin Canham was the first, and last, Resident Commissioner of the Northern Mariana Islands as it was in the process of becoming a commonwealth of the United States; and he was very active in various civic, political, and journalistic activities.

In 1925 Erwin Canham graduated from Bates College, where was captain of the debating team and was a member of Phi Beta Kappa, and he joined the Christian Science Monitor the same year.

Erwin Canham wrote about international affairs in the company of other Monitor correspondents such as Roscoe Drummond, William Henry Chamberlin and Reuben H Markham.

Erwin Canham stayed there until 1932 when he returned to the United States to head up the Washington, DC bureau.

In 1939, Erwin Canham returned to Boston as a general news editor.

Erwin Canham became the Monitor's longest-serving editor, assuming the title editor-in-chief in 1964, and in 1974, retiring and being named editor emeritus.

Besides his work at the Monitor, Erwin Canham was involved in other civic and professional activities and organizations.

Erwin Canham served as president and board chairman of the US Chamber of Commerce, president of the American Society of Newspaper Editors, and president of the board of trustees of the Boston Public Library.

Erwin Canham served on the Bates College board of trustees, was a member of President Richard Nixon's Commission on Campus Unrest, and served as chair of the National Manpower Commission under the Eisenhower administration, and on an advisory commission to the US Information Agency.

In 1953, Erwin Canham was sent to Holland to give Queen Juliana of the Netherlands a $27,000 donation from The First Church of Christ, Scientist to help those effected by the North Sea flood of 1953.

In 1955, Erwin Canham helped mediate a cell block takeover at the Charlestown Prison.

Erwin Canham was asked, along with six other men whom the prisoners respected, to listen to their story and see their living conditions.

Erwin Canham later called the experience one of the most meaningful in his life.

In 1975, Erwin Canham was appointed by Gerald Ford as Resident Commissioner of the Northern Marianas Islands with executive authority from 1975 to 1978 to oversee the result of the status referendum in which residents voted to withdraw from the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands.

Erwin Canham underwent abdominal surgery at Guam Memorial Hospital two weeks before his passing on January 3,1982.

In 1971, Erwin Canham received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement.