Helen Gagen Magee was a well-known and fascinating food writer. Born in Toronto, May 12, 1908, her maiden name was Gagenschatz, which she shortened to Gagen.

Gagen's career as a home economist and journalist spanned six decades. In the late 1920s she graduated from the University of Toronto with a Bachelor of Arts in Household Economics, followed by a six-month dietetic internship in New York City and a specialist teacher of household science course at the Ontario College of Education. She began her food career in 1930 when she started work for Katherine Caldwell Bayley and her husband, at the Home Services Bureau in Toronto. It was there that she began writing food copy for newspapers and magazines, producing a half-hour radio show called Cooking School of the Air, and managing theatre cooking schools. She spent ten years with the Bayleys at a salary of $90.00 per month.

From there she went on to advertising, working for Spitzer and Mills, and Baker Advertising. Her work at these advertising firms included home service consulting, food photography, writing print and radio advertising, copy policies and publicity. While still in advertising, during the 1940s, she began to write for Canadian Home Journal under the alias Joan Philips and also wrote a cookbook for the war effort, entitled Eat to Work to Win.

From 1960 to 1961, Gagen taught home economics. Her second book took her only three and a half weeks to write. Your Wedding: A Guide for Canadian Brides-to-Be was published in 1963. That was the same year Gagen began work as a food editor at the Toronto Telegram where she met her future husband, Ralph Magee. Relationships with coworkers were frowned upon at the Telegram, so Helen and her husband kept their marriage a secret from coworkers for six months. She worked there until 1971 when the company folded.

From 1976 to 1987, Gagen wrote "The Shopping Basket," a column for the Globe and Mail that dealt with food history and trends. The column was phased out in 1987, the same year in which her husband passed away. She then wrote anonymous restaurant reviews for Toronto Life and was honoured with the Hall of Fame Award from the Ontario Home Economists in Business (OHEIB) in 1989.

During this later period in her career, Gagen developed chronic lymphatic leukemia, which caused her to slow down. She passed away at the age of 89 due to congestive heart failure, March 23, 1998.

Over a long and very rewarding career, Helen Gagen contributed greatly to home economics in Ontario.

The Helen Gagen Collection spans her lifetime to 1990, and includes such materials as scrapbooks, photographs, recipes and manuscripts. It is a substantial collection, and offers an excellent look into the life of Helen Gagen and the evolution of home economics in Ontario.