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Edward Bernays
Edward Louis Bernays (/bɜːrˈneɪz/ bur-NAYZ; Austrian German: [bɛrˈnaɪs]; November 22, 1891 − March 9, 1995) was an American pioneer in the field of public relations and propaganda, referred to in his obituary as "the father of public relations". While credited with advancing the profession of public relations, his techniques have been criticized for manipulating public opinion, often in ways that undermined individual autonomy and democratic values.
His best-known campaigns include a 1929 effort to promote female smoking by branding cigarettes as feminist "Torches of Freedom", and his work for the United Fruit Company in the 1950s, connected with the CIA-orchestrated overthrow of the democratically elected Guatemalan government in 1954. His involvement in Guatemala facilitated US imperialism and contributed to decades of civil unrest and repression, raising ethical concerns about his role in undermining democratic governance.
He worked for dozens of major American corporations, including Procter & Gamble and General Electric, and for government agencies, politicians, and nonprofit organizations.
Of his many books, Crystallizing Public Opinion (1923) and Propaganda (1928) gained special attention as early efforts to define and theorize the field of public relations. Citing works of writers such as Gustave Le Bon, Wilfred Trotter, Walter Lippmann, and Sigmund Freud (his own double uncle), he described the masses as irrational and subject to herd instinct—and he outlined how skilled practitioners could use crowd psychology and psychoanalysis to control them in desired ways. Bernays later synthesized many of these ideas in his postwar book, Public Relations (1945), which outlines the science of managing information released to the public by an organization, in a manner most advantageous to the organization. He does this by first providing an overview of the history of public relations, and then provides insight into its application.
Bernays was named one of the 100 most influential Americans of the twentieth century by Life. Despite this recognition, his work has been linked to the rise of modern propaganda techniques that some argue have eroded democratic engagement and suppressed dissent. He was the subject of a full-length biography by Larry Tye entitled The Father of Spin (1999) and later an award-winning 2002 documentary for the BBC by Adam Curtis entitled The Century of the Self.
Edward Bernays was born in Vienna to a Jewish family. His mother, Anna (1858–1955), was Sigmund Freud's sister, and his father Eli (1860–1921) was the brother of Freud's wife, Martha Bernays; their grandfather, Isaac Bernays (through their father Berman), was the chief rabbi of Hamburg and a relative of the poet Heinrich Heine.
The Bernays family moved from Vienna to the United States in the 1890s. After Eli Bernays started working as a grain exporter at the Manhattan Produce Exchange, he sent for his wife and children. In 1892, his family moved to New York City, where Bernays attended DeWitt Clinton High School. In 1912 he graduated from Cornell University with a degree in agriculture, but chose journalism as his first career.
He married Doris E. Fleischman in 1922. Fleischman was a member of the Lucy Stone League, a group which encouraged women to keep their names after marriage.
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Edward Bernays
Edward Louis Bernays (/bɜːrˈneɪz/ bur-NAYZ; Austrian German: [bɛrˈnaɪs]; November 22, 1891 − March 9, 1995) was an American pioneer in the field of public relations and propaganda, referred to in his obituary as "the father of public relations". While credited with advancing the profession of public relations, his techniques have been criticized for manipulating public opinion, often in ways that undermined individual autonomy and democratic values.
His best-known campaigns include a 1929 effort to promote female smoking by branding cigarettes as feminist "Torches of Freedom", and his work for the United Fruit Company in the 1950s, connected with the CIA-orchestrated overthrow of the democratically elected Guatemalan government in 1954. His involvement in Guatemala facilitated US imperialism and contributed to decades of civil unrest and repression, raising ethical concerns about his role in undermining democratic governance.
He worked for dozens of major American corporations, including Procter & Gamble and General Electric, and for government agencies, politicians, and nonprofit organizations.
Of his many books, Crystallizing Public Opinion (1923) and Propaganda (1928) gained special attention as early efforts to define and theorize the field of public relations. Citing works of writers such as Gustave Le Bon, Wilfred Trotter, Walter Lippmann, and Sigmund Freud (his own double uncle), he described the masses as irrational and subject to herd instinct—and he outlined how skilled practitioners could use crowd psychology and psychoanalysis to control them in desired ways. Bernays later synthesized many of these ideas in his postwar book, Public Relations (1945), which outlines the science of managing information released to the public by an organization, in a manner most advantageous to the organization. He does this by first providing an overview of the history of public relations, and then provides insight into its application.
Bernays was named one of the 100 most influential Americans of the twentieth century by Life. Despite this recognition, his work has been linked to the rise of modern propaganda techniques that some argue have eroded democratic engagement and suppressed dissent. He was the subject of a full-length biography by Larry Tye entitled The Father of Spin (1999) and later an award-winning 2002 documentary for the BBC by Adam Curtis entitled The Century of the Self.
Edward Bernays was born in Vienna to a Jewish family. His mother, Anna (1858–1955), was Sigmund Freud's sister, and his father Eli (1860–1921) was the brother of Freud's wife, Martha Bernays; their grandfather, Isaac Bernays (through their father Berman), was the chief rabbi of Hamburg and a relative of the poet Heinrich Heine.
The Bernays family moved from Vienna to the United States in the 1890s. After Eli Bernays started working as a grain exporter at the Manhattan Produce Exchange, he sent for his wife and children. In 1892, his family moved to New York City, where Bernays attended DeWitt Clinton High School. In 1912 he graduated from Cornell University with a degree in agriculture, but chose journalism as his first career.
He married Doris E. Fleischman in 1922. Fleischman was a member of the Lucy Stone League, a group which encouraged women to keep their names after marriage.