Edward Bernays
1891 – 1995 American public relations pioneer, propagandist
The father of public relations who ran United Fruit's campaign to justify the 1954 Guatemala coup.
- Religion
- Jewish (secular)
- Affiliations
- United Fruit Company; nephew of Sigmund Freud
Edward Bernays, a nephew of Sigmund Freud, pioneered modern public relations and propaganda. Working for the United Fruit Company, he helped shape US media and public opinion against Guatemala's Arbenz government before the 1954 coup. He wrote influential books including Propaganda that laid out how elites could manage mass opinion.
Connections
- associate of George Creel — Bernays worked for the Committee on Public Information and drew on it for his later theory of engineering consent.
- rival of Ivy Lee — The two are jointly credited as founders of public relations and competed over its ideas and its history.
- associate of Walter Lippmann — A parallel theorist of managing public opinion; both worked on First World War propaganda and shaped the idea that consent could be engineered.
In the timeline
- 1928 Bernays publishes Propaganda mentioned
- 1928 Edward Bernays publishes two propaganda books central figure
- 1928 Bernays and the engineering of consent mentioned
- 1952 Edward Bernays runs the propaganda campaign central figure