Antecedents of Modern Public Relations

Conventional wisdom marks the beginning of public relations as we know it today as occurring during the 19th century, in the United States. A confluence of growing mass media outlets, a desire to reach mass markets, and a need to create public policy support for large industrial complexes fostered the practice and motivated the pioneers of the field to refine and shape the practice to the conditions of their time. Promotional giants such as P. T. Barnum used the profession as a honed art. Industries such as railroads and electric utilities used the profession to gain acceptance for uniform operations.

Important to note, however, is the fact that although the growth of media outlets offered new challenges and opportunities during the 19th century, many of the functions of the practice were well established by this time. Pioneers of the practice working in the 19th century built on a foundation that arguably reaches back to the dawn of civilizations that are hundreds and even thousand of years old. These origins are traceable by noting how staged events, including all sorts of pageantry, for instance, are virtually timeless. Such events, which include pseudo events staged purely for publicity and promotion purposes, are age-old tactics used to attract attention and make statements about the sponsors. For centuries, leaders of government, religion, and commerce have worked to inspire awe, mystery, and obedience.

Mercantile activities have required persons who can promote products, services, and business opportunities. Explorers opened trade routes and created treaty relationships to spark commerce. Shipping fleets, trade expeditions, and commercial relationships offer anthropologists insights into the forces that shaped cultures.

Governments of many types and in all regions of the globe were crafted by strong central leaders who used communication to manage their reputations, to coordinate ruling structures, and to command the loyalty of the governed. Changes in government have often been associated with traditional public relations strategies, functions, and tactics. Scholars have identified antecedents of public relations with the communication efforts to foster the War of Independence, by which some of the colonies in the new America broke away from England.

Public relations is associated with all aspects of cultural growth and change. Political campaigns are the playground of public relations. European monarchies have used pageantry, diplomacy, warfare, executions, and managed marriages to create and change governments. Colleges and universities, in places as recent as colonial America and as old as the centers of education of Alexandria and Athens, used public communication to focus attention on their educational accomplishments. The creation and propagation of new faiths also provided antecedents. Churches, perhaps most notably the Catholic Church, have used techniques to attract and keep converts loyal to the faith.

The historical antecedents of public relations, therefore, are often entangled with communication activities typically associated with what is called propaganda. Even well into the early decades of the 20th century, practitioners thought they were engaged in the practice of propaganda. Once that term became associated with manipulation, lying, and deceit, senior practitioners such as Edward Bernays and John W. Hill worked to divorce themselves and their practice from that aspect of public communication.

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