41 Facts About Edward Bernays

Edward Bernays was named one of the 100 most influential Americans of the twentieth century by Life.

Edward Bernays was the subject of a full-length biography by Larry Tye entitled The Father of Spin 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.

The Edward Bernays family moved from Vienna to the United States in the 1890s.

In 1892, his family moved to New York City, where Edward Bernays attended DeWitt Clinton High School.

Edward Bernays went to Paris and worked for Louis Dreyfus and Company, reading grain cables.

Edward Bernays promoted the Daddy Long Legs stage play by tying it in with the cause of charity for orphans.

Edward Bernays built up opera singer Enrico Caruso as an idol whose voice was so sensitive that comically extreme measures were taken to protect it.

Edward Bernays later described a realization that his work for the CPI could be used in peacetime:.

Edward Bernays, who pursued his calling in New York City from 1919 to 1963, styled himself a "public relations counsel".

Edward Bernays had very pronounced views on the differences between what he did and what people in advertising did.

Edward Bernays used ideas of his uncle Sigmund Freud to help convince the public, among other things, that bacon and eggs was the true all-American breakfast.

Edward Bernays was publicity director for the 1939 New York World's Fair.

In 1924 Edward Bernays set up a vaudeville "pancake breakfast" for Calvin Coolidge to change his stuffy image prior to the 1924 election.

Edward Bernays advised Hoover to create disunity within his opposition and to present an image of him as an invincible leader.

Edward Bernays helped to name the President's Emergency Committee for Employment, suggesting this name as preferable to the "Committee for Unemployment".

Edward Bernays was chairman of the National Advisory Committee of the Third US War Loan, co-chairman of the Victory Book campaign, and part of the New York State Defense Council.

Edward Bernays reported turning down the Nazis, Nicaragua under the Somoza family, Francisco Franco, and Richard Nixon as clients.

Edward Bernays worked on behalf of many nonprofit institutions and organizations.

In 1920, Edward Bernays organized the publication of Freud's Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis in the US, sending royalty money to his uncle in Vienna.

In 1927, Edward Bernays worked briefly for Liggett and Myers, makers of Chesterfield cigarettes.

Edward Bernays pulled a stunt against the competing brand, Lucky Strike, which involved mocking the endorsements of opera singers who said Lucky Strikes were "kind to your voice".

When he started working for American Tobacco Company, Edward Bernays was given the objective of increasing Lucky Strike sales among women, who, for the most part, had formerly avoided smoking.

Edward Bernays began by promoting the ideal of thinness itself, using photographers, artists, newspapers, and magazines to promote the special beauty of thin women.

Edward Bernays consulted with psychoanalyst Abraham Brill, a student of Freud's, who reported to him that cigarettes represented "torches of freedom" for women whose feminine desires were increasingly suppressed by their role in the modern world.

In 1934, Edward Bernays was asked to deal with women's apparent reluctance to buy Lucky Strikes because their green and red package clashed with standard female fashions.

When Edward Bernays suggested changing the package to a neutral color, Hill refused, saying that he had already spent millions advertising the package.

Edward Bernays did not smoke cigarettes himself, and persistently tried to induce his wife Doris to quit.

Edward Bernays argued that United Fruit needed to put a positive spin on the banana-growing countries themselves, and for this purpose created a front group called the Middle America Information Bureau, which supplied information to journalists and academics.

Edward Bernays resented this change but stayed on with the company, for a reported annual fee of more than $100,000.

Edward Bernays worked on the national press and successfully drummed up coverage of Guatemala's 'Communist menace'.

Per Edward Bernays's strategy, United Fruit distributed favorable articles and an anonymous Report on Guatemala to every member of Congress and to national "opinion molders".

Edward Bernays formed close relationships with journalists including The New York Times reporter Will Lissner and columnist Walter Winchell.

Edward Bernays argued that the covert use of third parties was morally legitimate because those parties were morally autonomous actors.

Edward Bernays went to his physician and found that a heavy breakfast was sounder from the standpoint of health than a light breakfast because the body loses energy during the night and needs it during the day.

Edward Bernays arranged for this finding to be published in newspapers throughout the country with headlines like '4,500 physicians urge bigger breakfast' while other articles stated that bacon and eggs should be a central part of breakfast and, as a result of these actions, the sale of bacon went up.

Edward Bernays expanded on Walter Lippmann's concept of stereotype, arguing that predictable elements could be manipulated for mass effects:.

Edward Bernays touted the idea that the "masses" are driven by factors outside their conscious understanding, and therefore that their minds can and should be manipulated by the capable few.

Unlike some other early public relations practitioners, Edward Bernays advocated centralization and planning.

Edward Bernays died in 1995 at the age of 103, in his Cambridge, Massachusetts home.

Edward Bernays attracted positive and negative attention for his grand statements about the role of public relations in society.