NOTABLES OF AMERICAN
75 YEARS OF IMPACT AND INFLUENCE
PR
campaign purposes. Notably President Woodrow Wilson’s Western Tour promoting the League of Nations utilized a series of staged events and scripted speeches to garner American support for
EDWARD L. BERNAYS APR, Fellow PRSA
joining the League. By the 1930s, President Franklin Roosevelt’s administration established new norms of presidential communication. These included the famed fireside chats, which helped Roosevelt gain popular support for his New Deal. With the economic disparity caused by the Great Depression, corporate public relations strived to fashion a company voice that would resonate with Americans during the 1930s. This led to the rise of public relations counsels hired by companies to craft and maintain their corporate image. Nonprofits also gained a level of sophistication in public relations work. The March of Dimes, one of the most successful fundraising campaigns, began in 1938 and was an innovative example of small-donation fundraising. By the 1940s, public relations had become part of almost every major American business. The formal study of public relations also grew with Rex Harlow becoming an early PR academic. According to Harvard Business School historian N.S.B. Gras, by 1945 trade publications
1891–1995 Edward Louis Bernays is referred to as “the father of public relations.” He’s generally considered to have been the first to develop the idea of the professional public relations counselor (someone who draws on the social sciences to motivate and shape the response of a general or particular audience). As Sigmund Freud’s nephew, Bernays combined psychology with public relations to promote everything from bacon to cigarettes. His 1923 book “Crystallizing Public Opinion” helped define and shape the profession. In 1990, LIFE magazine named Bernays one of the “100 Most Influential Americans of the 20th Century.” He received PRSA’s Gold Anvil Award in 1976. He was in the inaugural class of the College of Fellows. (Courtesy of the Museum of Public Relations)
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In the early 1900s, communications strategists were adopting staged events for campaign purposes, including President Woodrow Wilson’s Western Tour on behalf of the League of Nations. (Ian Dagnall / Alamy Stock Photo)