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The Legacy of Edward Bernays

How a one-time war propagandist created the modern PR industry

By Siavesh Rokni

A, a consumerist society, North
America has gone through several
different stages of development for the
past 100 years. From this, one sees new
methods of public management, and
mass persuasion in today’s complex
democratic society. This is the story of
a man who for the first time in North
American history, showed American
corporations how they can make people
want things that they do not need by
linking mass produced goods to their
unconscious desires.
His name was
Edward L: Bernays
and he is considered
the “Father of Public
Relations,” and
by extension the
founder of modern
consumerism, _ the
powerful ideology
which so dominates
our world _ today.

Edward
Bernays was born on November 22,
1891. in Vienna. He moved to America
at a young age and in 1913 started a
career as a journalist. When America
entered World War I, the United ‘States
government set up a “Committee on
Public Information.” The aim of this
committee was to promote the US war
aims in the press, and Bernays became
one of its members. He showed great
skill in promoting the idea that it was
America’s duty to ‘not only to restore
Europe’s old empires, but. also bring
democracy to the entire continent.
After the war, Woodrow Wilson, the
President of United States at that time,
invited Bernays to the subsequent peace
conferencesin Paris. Wilson’sreceptionin
Paris astonished Bernays. The American
wartime propaganda efforts had been

“Bernays invented
the term ‘public
relations’ himself,
as ‘propaganda’ by
now had a negative
connotation.”

so successful that Wilson was indeed
perceived as the liberator of the people
and a hero of the masses. As Bernays
watched all these events going by, he
began to wonder whether there could be
a way to use propaganda in peacetime.
After returning to America, he

started an office in New York as a “public
relations” councillor, Bernays invented
the term himself, as “propaganda” by
now had a negative connotation. Yet the
spirit of his efforts remained largely the
same. Bernay believed ideology could
be used to sway the

masses and he drew

heavily from the

ideas of Sigmund

Freud, his uncle.

While in Paris, he had

sent a box of Cuban

Cigars to Freud, and

in return, Freud gave

‘him a copy of his
famous book, Outline

of | Psychoanalysis.

After reading the

book, Bernays was fascinated by the
idea of hidden irrational forces in human
beings and wondered if he. could make
money by manipulating these forces.
One of Bernays’s firstclients was

George Washington ‘Hill, the president
of the American Tobacco Corporation.
At that time, there was a strong taboo
against women smoking in public, and
therefore the corporation was losing
half of its clients. Hill asked Bernays

to figure out a way to break this taboo |

and tap the female market. In response
to this request, Bernays asked Hill for
permission to go and see Dr. A.A. Brill,
one of the first psychoanalysts in New
York, and a former associate of Freud.
Bernays wanted to know what cigarettes
symbolized, and for a large fee, Brill
told Bernays that cigarettes were icons

of male sexual power, and in order for
him to make women smoke in public,
had to find a way to connect cigarettes
with the idea of challenging this power.

On March 31, 1929, at the
Easter parade in New York, Bernays
staged an event that destroyed the female
smoking taboo for ever. He persuaded
a group of young rich women to hide
cigarettes under their clothes and walk in
the parade. Once he signalled them, they
had to light up a cigarette and continue

walking. At the same time, Bernays had’

told the press that a group of women
were going to be lighting “Torches of
Freedom” in the interest of equality of
sexes. So the press stood ready and

 

waiting, and after the surprise, a huge
deal of publicity was created. The news
was not only in newspapers in New York,
but also all over America. What Bernays
had done was single-handedly make it
socially acceptable for women to smoke
in public by using a symbol, in this case,
“Torches of Fréedom.” By evoking the
idea of female empowerment, anyone
who believed in gender equality now
had to support the cause that the
parade’s women were fighting for. After
the campaign, the sales of cigarettes
to women increased dramatically, a
testament to Bernay’s genius, and the
power of good PR.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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