Editing Edward Bernays (section)

==Career==
After graduating from Cornell, Bernays wrote for the ''National Nurseryman'' journal. Then he worked at the New York City Produce Exchange, where his father was a grain exporter. He went to Paris and worked for [[Louis Dreyfus Company|Louis Dreyfus and Company]], reading grain cables. By December 1912, he had returned to New York.{{sfn|Tye|1998|p=4–5}}

===Medical editor===
Following a meeting in New York with school friend Fred Robinson, Bernays became coeditor of ''Medical Review of Reviews'' and ''Dietetic and Hygienic Gazette'' in 1912. They took editorial positions in favor of showers and against corsets, and distributed free copies to thousands of physicians across the country.<ref>{{harvnb|Tye|1998|pp=5–6}}: "They used the ''Medical Review'' to argue against women wearing corsets with stays and to encourage shower baths; they published expert opinions on health controversies, a relatively novel approach; and they distributed free copies to most of the 137,000 licensed physicians in the United States."</ref>

Two months later they took up the cause of ''[[Damaged Goods (play)|Damaged Goods]]'', an English translation of ''Les Avariés'' by [[Eugène Brieux]]. After publishing a positive review of the play, Bernays and Robinson wrote to its lead actor, [[Richard Bennett (actor)|Richard Bennett]]: "The editors of the ''Medical Review of Reviews'' support your praiseworthy intention to fight sex-pruriency in the United States by producing Brieux's play ''Damaged Goods''. You can count on our help."<ref>{{harvnb|Tye|1998|pp=6–7}}: "Bennett quickly accepted the offer, pumping up the young editor with visions of a crusade against Victorian mores, promising to recruit actors who would work without pay and prodding him to raise money for the production. Eddie was so excited that he volunteered to underwrite the production."</ref>

The play controversially dealt with [[venereal disease]] and prostitution—Bernays called it "a propaganda play that fought for [[sex education]]."{{sfn|Rampton|Stauber|2001|p=44}} He created the "''Medical Review of Reviews'' Sociological Fund Committee" and successfully solicited the support of such elite figures as [[John D. Rockefeller Jr.]], [[Franklin Delano Roosevelt]] and [[Eleanor Roosevelt]], Reverend [[John Haynes Holmes]], and Anne Harriman Sands Rutherford Vanderbilt, wife of [[William Kissam Vanderbilt]].<ref>{{harvnb|Tye|1998|p=8}} "The key with ''Damaged Goods'', he realized, was to transform the controversy into a cause and recruit backers who already were public role models. The twenty-one-year-old editor formed a ''Medical Review of Reviews'' Sociological Fund Committee, then attracted members with an artful appeal that played on Bennett's reputation as an artist as well as the worthiness of battling prudishness. Among those who signed up were John D. Rockefeller, Jr., Mrs. William K. Vanderbilt Sr., Mr. and Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt, Dr. William Jay Schieffelin, whose company had recently brought to America a treatment for [[syphilis]], and the Reverent John Haynes Holmes of New York's Unitarian Community Church."</ref>{{sfn|Cutlip|1994|p=162}}

===Press agent===
After his foray into the world of theater, Bernays worked as a creative [[press agent]] for various performers and performances. Already, he was using a variety of techniques that would become hallmarks of his later practice. He promoted the ''[[Daddy-Long-Legs (novel)|Daddy Long Legs]]'' stage play by tying it in with the cause of charity for orphans. To create interest in [[Sergei Diaghilev]]'s [[Ballets Russes]], he educated Americans about the subtleties of ballet—and publicized a picture of [[Flore Revalles]], wearing a tight-fitting dress, at the Bronx Zoo, posed with a large snake. He built up opera singer [[Enrico Caruso]] as an idol whose voice was so sensitive that comically extreme measures were taken to protect it.{{sfn|Tye|1998|pp=9–16}}

===World War I===
After the US entered the war, the [[Committee on Public Information]] (CPI) hired Bernays to work for its Bureau of Latin-American Affairs, based in an office in New York. Bernays, along with Lieutenant F. E. Ackerman, focused on building support for war, domestically and abroad, focusing especially on businesses operating in Latin America.<ref>{{harvnb|Tye|1998|p=18}}: "Finally given his chance to serve, Eddie recruited Ford, International Harvester, and scores of other American firms to distribute literature on U.S. war aims to foreign contacts and post U.S. propaganda on the windows of 650 American offices overseas. He distributed postcards to Italian soldiers at the front so they could boost morale at home, and he planted propaganda behind the German lines to sow dissent. He organized rallies at [[Carnegie Hall]] featuring freedom fighters from Poland, Czechoslovakia, and other states that were anxious to break free of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. And to counter German propaganda he had American propaganda printed in Spanish and Portuguese and inserted into export journals sent across Latin America. <br />"In short, he helped win America over to an unpopular war using precisely the techniques he'd used to promote ''Daddy Long Legs'' and the Ballet Russe."</ref><ref>James R. Mock, "[https://www.jstor.org/stable/2506870 The Creel Committee in Latin America] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200502102013/https://www.jstor.org/stable/2506870 |date=2020-05-02 }}", ''The Hispanic American Historical Review'' 22(2), May 1942, p. 276. "Another section of the New York office, however, was especially concerned with publicity channels and publicity for the nations south of us. This was the division known as the Bureau of Latin-American Affairs, with Edward L. Bernays and Lieutenant F. E. Ackerman playing possibly the leading roles. That organization appealed especially to American firms doing business in Latin America, and secured their cooperation. In addition to means already cited, this section utilized various kinds of educators, especially as a medium of distributing pamphlets."</ref> Bernays referred to this work as "[[psychological warfare]]".<ref>{{harvnb|Ewen|1996|pp=162–163}}: "During the war years, Bernays joined the army of publicists rallied under the banner of the CPI and concentrated on propaganda efforts aimed at Latin American business interests. Within this vast campaign of "psychological warfare", as he described it, Bernays—like others of his generation—began to develop an expanded sense of publicity and its practical uses."</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Axelrod |first1=Alan |title=Selling the Great War: The Making of American Propaganda |date=2009 |publisher=St. Martin's Publishing Group |isbn=978-0-230-61959-3 |page=200 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nEi1RpLqbNQC&pg=PA200 |access-date=May 21, 2020 |language=en |archive-date=May 8, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200508042947/https://books.google.com/books?id=nEi1RpLqbNQC&pg=PA200 |url-status=live }}</ref>

After fighting ended, Bernays was part of a sixteen-person publicity group working for the CPI at the [[Paris Peace Conference, 1919|Paris Peace Conference]]. A scandal arose from his reference to propaganda in a press release. As reported by the ''New York World'', the "announced object of the expedition is 'to interpret the work of the Peace Conference by keeping up a worldwide propaganda to disseminate American accomplishments and ideals.'"{{sfn|Tye|1998|p=19}}<ref>{{harvnb|Cutlip|1994|p=165}}: "Bernays' release announced that the Official Press Mission to the Peace Conference was leaving the next day for Paris and instead of the narrow technical press support mission Creel had defined for the group, Bernays inserted this sentence: 'The announced object of the expedition is to interpret the work of the Peace Conference by keeping up a worldwide propaganda to disseminate American accomplishments and ideals.' Two days later, the ''New York World'' headlined the story: 'TO INTERPRET AMERICAN IDEALS.' George Creel was furious; already in a battle with Congress, Creel knew that this would add fat to the fire. He disavowed the story. Nonetheless, it hastened the demise of the CPI."</ref>

Bernays later described a realization that his work for the CPI could also be used in peacetime:
{{blockquote|There was one basic lesson I learned in the CPI—that efforts comparable to those applied by the CPI to affect the attitudes of the enemy, of neutrals, and people of this country could be applied with equal facility to peacetime pursuits. In other words, what could be done for a nation at war could be done for organizations and people in a nation at peace.{{sfn|Cutlip|1994|p=168}}}}

===Counsel on public relations===
Bernays, who pursued his calling in New York City from 1919 to 1963, styled himself a "public relations counsel". He had very pronounced views on the differences between what he did and what people in [[advertising]] did. A pivotal figure in the orchestration of elaborate corporate advertising campaigns and multi-media consumer spectacles, he is among those listed in the acknowledgments section of the seminal government social science study ''Recent Social Trends in the United States'' (1933).<ref>{{cite book |author=President's Research Committee on Social Trends |title=Recent Social Trends in the United States |url=https://archive.org/details/recentsocialtren01unitrich |publisher=[[McGraw-Hill Education|McGraw-Hill Book Company]] |via=[[Internet Archive]] |year=1933}}</ref>