Hood, Caroline

Caroline Hood (married name Carlin) (1909–1981) was the first woman vice president of Rockefeller Center, Inc., a 21-building development in Manhattan, where she managed public relations programs, community events, and corporate advertising from 1934 to 1973. Hood was also the first woman to be elected to the board of directors of the New York Convention and Visitors Bureau and of Radio City Music Hall.

Hood began her work at Rockefeller Center as a “Flying Ambassadress” traveling thousands of miles annually to publicize and promote the new multibuilding project (“Caroline Hood,” 1981), although a 1951 article on women in public relations reported that Caroline Hood began selling souvenirs to tourists in the basement of Rockefeller Center and then suggested offering tours of the center's gardens to the public (“Women in Public Relations,” 1951, p. 6).

Some of her accomplishments include the annual search for the famous Rockefeller Center Christmas tree; receptions for the world's great—“from the Dionne quintuplets to Haile Salassie to Princess Margaret; the celebration for the liberation of Paris in 1944 to the annual Christmas tree lighting ceremonies” (“Caroline Hood,” 1981, p. 1).

Hood was the first woman appointed to the Public Relations Society of America's Board of Directors in 1951. In 1972, she received the Distinguished Service Award from the New York chapter of the Public Relations Society of America, the first woman so honored. The New York chapter of Theta Sigma Pi, a national journalism sorority, named her the outstanding woman in journalism and communication.

Hood served as president of Women Executives in Public Relations and of Advertising Women in New York.

In 1959, she served on a 16-member advisory panel for the United States Information Agency in [Page 393]Washington, DC, and in 1963 she served on the New York State Women's Council. In 1964, the Republican Women in Business and Professions honored her as “the outstanding woman in public relations.” Her career highlights are housed at the Schlesinger Library at Radcliffe College.

Hood studied at Columbia University and the New School. She was married to John Hayward Carlin.