5.2.8 Einstein Comes to America

Part 1: Science Comes to Public Relations

A young Austrian-born Edward Bernays (1891–1995) parlayed a job promoting U.S. tours of Enrico Caruso, the Ballets Russes, and Broadway musicals into a junior position at the U.S. Committee on Public Information (CPI), the government’s wartime propaganda bureau. What he lacked in seniority, he made up for in energy and salesmanship. After the war’s end he set sale for Paris with a CPI team and created a firestorm with his press release announcing the object of their expedition was “to interpret the work of the Peace Conference by keeping up a worldwide propaganda to disseminate American accomplishments and ideals” [[iiia]]. “It was the war,” Bernays confirmed, “which opened the eyes of the intelligent few in all departments of life to the possibilities of regimenting the public mind” [[iiib]].

Figure 5.46: Uncle Sam wants you to join the U.S. Army [[i]] and destroy this mad brute [[ii]] in WWI propaganda posters.

The 1919 eclipse story arrived on the scene at the same time as Bernays was busy revolutionizing the art of public relations and promotion. His distant cousin, the Swiss mathematician Paul Bernays (1888–1977), was an early critic of relativity [[iv]], but Edward’s talents lay elsewhere. In 1919, he leveraged his wartime experience to found the first “public relations” or “PR” firm [[v]]. A nephew of the famous Austrian-Jewish psychologist, Sigmund Freud (1858–1939), Bernays did not ask newspapers to print things. Instead, he aimed to create “‘events and circumstances’ which newspapers are compelled to notice as news” [[vi]].

Figure 5.47: Edward Louis James Bernays (1891–1995) [[vii]], left, and the title page of his book Propaganda, right.

In a 1932 article for the Atlantic, legendary journalist John T. Flynn (1882–1964), described Bernays’ “science of ballyhoo.”

Bernays’s field, it will be seen, is the psychology of the crowd. He is fond of quoting Le Bon [Gustave Le Bon (1841–1931)]. The French writer popularized the theory that the crowd mind is less intelligent than the minds of the individuals who compose it, and that emotional states are contagious….

But Bernays fell to analyzing philosophically what he was doing, and when the war ended he felt himself to be in possession of a powerful instrument which could be used with rich results for business. His success has been extraordinary... It is obvious that the monetary rewards for the kind of work he does are very large….

One cannot talk long to Bernays without learning that the most direct way to reach the mind of the herd is through its leaders — its group leaders. Bernays, of course, deals with mental groups — groups arranged according to intelligence, tastes, prejudices, ambitions, emotions [[viii]].

To publicize the fact of his marriage in 1922, Bernays induced his wife to register for the honeymoon suite at the Waldorf Astoria under her maiden name. “More than 250 newspapers ran stories explaining how, for the first time, a married woman had registered at the Waldorf with her husband, using a different name, and the elegant old hotel had permitted it” [[ix]].

Bernays pioneered the art of celebrity political endorsement, inviting forty prominent entertainers to the White House for breakfast with Calvin Coolidge to boost his image for the 1924 election [[xiii]].

In 1929, he was commissioned to normalize smoking for women. He solicited women to parade along Fifth Avenue in Manhattan on Easter Sunday lighting a “torch of freedom” by smoking their cigarettes [[xiv]]. When surveys showed women wouldn’t smoke Lucky Strike cigarettes because the green package clashed with fashions, Bernays launched a campaign to make green the fashionable color for the season, complete with a Green Ball held at the Waldorf-Astoria attended by New York’s most fashionable debutantes – all dressed in green fashions [[xv]].

Figure 5.48: Examples of Bernays’ handiwork from 1922 [[x]], 1924 [[xi]], and from 1929 [[xii]].

In his classic 1928 text on the subject, Propaganda, Bernays declared:

The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country [[xvi]].

What is the intriguing connection between Bernays and the unprecedented publicity Einstein received upon his arrival to the US in 1921? We will pick up that topic next time.

Next time: 5.2.8: Einstein Comes to America: Part 2 Public Relations Comes to Science

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References

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[[i]] Flagg, James Montgomery, “Uncle Sam’s Call to Arms.” - This image is available from the United States Library of Congress's Prints and Photographs division under the digital ID cph.3b52086. This tag does not indicate the copyright status of the attached work. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_in_World_War_I#/media/File:Uncle_sam_propaganda_in_ww1.jpg

[[ii]] Hopps, Harry R., 1869-1937, “Destroy this mad brute Enlist - U.S. Army.” Propaganda poster shows a terrifying gorilla with a pickelhaube helmet labeled “militarism” holding a bloody club labeled “kultur” and a half-naked woman as he stomps onto the shore of America. See: https://www.loc.gov/resource/ppmsca.55871/

[[iiia]] Tye, Larry, The Father of Spin: Edward L. Bernays & the Birth of Public Relations, New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2002, pp. 18-19. See: https://dokumen.pub/the-father-of-spin-edward-l-bernays-and-the-birth-of-public-relations-9780805067897-0805067892-2001024223-g-6212205.html.

[[iiib] Pringle, Henry F., “Mass Psychologist,” American Mercury, Vol. XIX, No. 74, February, 1930, pp. 156-162. See p. 160.

[[iv]] Bernays, Paul, “Über die Bedenklichkeiten der neueren Relativitätstheorie” [On the doubts of the new theory of relativity], (reworking of a lecture given in June 1911 within the Friesian School) In: Abhandlungen der Fries’schen Schule, 1914, Bd. 4, H. 3., S. 457-482. See: https://www-kritik--relativitaetstheorie-de.translate.goog/2011/08/uber-die-bedenklichkeiten-der-neueren-relativitatstheorie/?_x_tr_sl=de&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=wapp.

[[v]] Jeff Jacoby, “The Public Be Swayed: Edward Bernays, the ‘Father of Public Relations,’ Is Still Giving Advice on His 100^th Birthday,” The Jerusalem Report, February 13, 1992. See: https://jeffjacoby.com/5708/the-public-be-swayed.
“IN HIS HEYDAY, they all came to Edward Bernays: Henry Ford, Enrico Caruso, Sergei Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes. He counseled Chaim Weizmann in the 1920s and Jawaharlal Nehru in the 1940s. He accompanied the American delegation to the Paris peace talks after World War I, and found an American publisher for his uncle, Sigmund Freud. From the electric light bulb to the American civil rights movement, Bernays was always called in -- to promote the product, enhance the image, win the favorable press notices.”

[[vi]] Flynn, John T., “Edward L. Bernays: The Science of Ballyhoo,” The Atlantic Monthly, May 1932, pp. 562-571.

[[vii]] Edward Bernays in 1917. Bain News Service - File:Birnbaum,_Gordon,_Bernays,_Fornia,_Mrs._Coppicus,_Amato,_Botta_(LOC).jpg See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Bernays#/media/File:Edward_Bernays_cropped.png

[[viii]] Flynn, John T., “Edward L. Bernays: The Science of Ballyhoo,” The Atlantic Monthly, May 1932, pp. 562-571.

[[ix]] Tye, Larry, The Father of Spin: Edward L. Bernays & the Birth of Public Relations, New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2002, p. 1. See: https://dokumen.pub/the-father-of-spin-edward-l-bernays-and-the-birth-of-public-relations-9780805067897-0805067892-2001024223-g-6212205.html.

[[x]] Clipped from The Evening Tribune, Providence, RI, Monday, September 18, 1922, p. 5. See: https://books.google.com/books?id=4utcAAAAIBAJ&pg=PA5&dq=bernays&article_id=3021,2139810&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiFx4Sb7u6KAxUORDABHbScMn0QuwV6BAgHEAY#v=onepage&q=bernays&f=false

[[xi]] Clipped from The New York Times, October 18, 1924. See: https://www.nytimes.com/1924/10/18/archives/actors-eat-cakes-with-the-coolidges-thirty-enjoy-breakfast-at-the.html?searchResultPosition=1

[[xii]] Clipped from The Meriden Record Apr 10, 1929. See: https://books.google.com/books?id=PV5HAAAAIBAJ&pg=PA4&dq=fifth+avenue+smoking&article_id=4056,4232397&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiJ9Kq3h--KAxWnfjABHRXBAi8Q6AF6BAgGEAI#v=onepage&q=fifth%20avenue%20smoking&f=false

[[xiii]] Flynn, John T. “Edward L. Bernays: The Science of Ballyhoo,” The Atlantic Monthly, May 1932, pp. 562-571. See: https://cdn.theatlantic.com/media/archives/1932/05/149-5/132442681.pdf

[[xiv]] Tye, Larry, The Father of Spin: Edward L. Bernays & the Birth of Public Relations, New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2002, pp. 24-26. See: https://dokumen.pub/the-father-of-spin-edward-l-bernays-and-the-birth-of-public-relations-9780805067897-0805067892-2001024223-g-6212205.html.

[[xv]] Tye, Larry, The Father of Spin: Edward L. Bernays & the Birth of Public Relations, New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2002, p. 1. See: https://dokumen.pub/the-father-of-spin-edward-l-bernays-and-the-birth-of-public-relations-9780805067897-0805067892-2001024223-g-6212205.html.

[[xvi]] Bernays, Edward L., Propaganda, New York: Horace Liveright, Inc., 1928, p. 9. See: https://archive.org/details/bernays-propaganda-in-english-1/page/9/mode/2up?q=intelligent