page_title: History of public relations
section_title: Early pioneers
hierarchical_section_title: History of public relations / Origins as a profession / Early pioneers
caption_attribution_description: English: Ruins of the Ludlow Colony near Trinidad, Colorado, following an attack by the Colorado National Guard. Forms part of the George Grantham Bain Collection at the Library of Congress.
context_page_description: Most textbooks date the establishment of the "Publicity Bureau" in 1900 as the start of the modern public relations profession. Of course, there were many early forms of public influence and communications management in history. Basil Clarke is considered the founder of the public relations profession in Britain with his establishment of Editorial Services in 1924. Academic Noel Turnball points out that systematic PR was employed in Britain first by religious evangelicals and Victorian reformers, especially opponents of slavery. In each case the early promoters focused on their particular movement and were not for hire more generally.
  Propaganda was used by both sides to rally domestic support and demonize enemies during the First World War. PR activists entered the private sector in the 1920s. Public relations became established first in the US by Ivy Lee or Edward Bernays, then spread internationally. Many American companies with PR departments spread the practice to Europe after 1948 when they created European subsidiaries as a result of the Marshall plan.
  The second half of the twentieth century was the professional development building era of public relations.
context_section_description: The Publicity Bureau was the first PR agency and was founded by former Boston journalists, including Ivy Lee. Ivy Lee is sometimes called the father of PR and was influential in establishing it as a professional practice. In 1906, Lee published a Declaration of Principles, which said that PR work should be done in the open, should be accurate and cover topics of public interest. According to historian Eric Goldman, the declaration of principles marked the beginning of an emphasis on informing, rather than misleading, the public. Ivy Lee is also credited with developing the modern press release and the "two-way-street" philosophy of both listening to and communicating with the public. In 1906, Lee helped facilitate the Pennsylvania Railroad's first positive media coverage after inviting press to the scene of a railroad accident, despite objections from executives. At the time, secrecy about corporate operations was common practice. Lee's work was often identified as spin or propaganda. In 1913 and 1914, the mining union was blaming the Ludlow Massacre, where on-strike miners and their families were killed by state militia, on the Rockefeller family and their coal mining operation, The Colorado Fuel and Iron Company. On the Rockefeller family's behalf, Lee published bulletins called "Facts Concerning the Struggle in Colorado for Industrial Freedom," which contained false and misleading information. Lee warned that the Rockefellers were losing public support and developed a strategy that Junior followed to repair it. It was necessary for Junior to overcome his shyness, go personally to Colorado to meet with the miners and their families, inspect the conditions of the homes and the factories, attend social events, and especially to listen closely to the grievances. This was novel advice, and attracted widespread media attention, which opened the way to resolve the conflict, and present a more humanized versions of the Rockefellers. In response the labor press said Lee "twisted the facts" and called him a "paid liar," a "hired slanderer," and a "poisoner of public opinion." By 1917, Bethlehem Steel company announced it would start a publicity campaign against perceived errors about them. The Y.M.C.A. opened a new press secretary. AT&T and others also started their first publicity programs.
  Edward Bernays, a nephew of Sigmund Freud, is also sometimes referred to as the father of PR and the profession's first theorist for his work in the 1920s. He took the approach that audiences had to be carefully understood and persuaded to see things from the client's perspective. He wrote the first textbook on PR and taught the first college course at New York University in 1923. Bernays also first introduced the practice of using front groups in order to protect tobacco interests. In the 1930s he started the first vocational course in PR. Bernays was influenced by Freud's theories about the subconscious. He authored several books, including Crystallizing Public Opinion (1923), Propaganda (1928), and The Engineering of Consent (1947). He saw PR as an "applied social science" that uses insights from psychology, sociology, and other disciplines to scientifically manage and manipulate the thinking and behavior of an irrational and "herdlike" public.
  In 1929, Edward Bernays helped the Lucky Strike cigarette brand increase its sales among the female demographic. Research showed that women were reluctant to carry a pack of Lucky Strike cigarettes, because the brand's green color scheme clashed with popular fashion choices. Bernays persuaded fashion designers, charity events, interior designers and others to popularize the color green. He also positioned cigarettes as Torches of Freedom that represent rebellion against the norms of a male-dominated society.
  According to Ruth Edgett from Syracuse University, Lee and Bernays both had "initial and spectacular successes in raising PR from the art of the snake oil salesman to the calling for a true communicator." However, "late in their careers, both Lee and Bernays took on clients with clearly repreh
caption: The aftermath of the Ludlow Massacre
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