Edward Bernays | |
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Born |
Edward Bernays November 22, 1891 Vienna, Austria-Hungary |
Died | March 9, 1995 Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S. |
(aged 103)
Occupation | Public relations, advertising |
Notable work | Crystallizing Public Opinion (1923), Propaganda (1928), Public Relations (1945), The Engineering of Consent (1955) |
Spouse(s) | Doris E. Fleischman |
Children | Doris Bernays, Anne Bernays |
Parent(s) | Ely Bernays Anna Freud |
Relatives |
Sigmund Freud (Uncle) Martha Bernays (grandmother) Isaac Bernays (great-grandfather) |
Edward Louis James Bernays (/bərˈneɪz/; German: [bɛɐ̯ˈnaɪs]; November 22, 1891 − March 9, 1995) was an Austrian-American pioneer in the field of public relations and propaganda, referred to in his obituary as "the father of public relations". He combined the ideas of Gustave Le Bon and Wilfred Trotter on crowd psychology with the psychoanalytical ideas of his uncle, Sigmund Freud.
He felt this manipulation was necessary in society, which he regarded as irrational and dangerous as a result of the "herd instinct" that Trotter had described.Adam Curtis's award-winning 2002 documentary for the BBC, The Century of the Self, pinpoints Bernays as the originator of modern public relations, and Bernays was named one of the 100 most influential Americans of the 20th century by Life magazine.
Edward Bernays was the son of Ely Bernays and Anna Freud Bernays. His great grandfather was Isaac Bernays, chief rabbi of Hamburg. Bernays was a “double nephew” of Viennese psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud—by virtue of his mother, Freud’s sister, and of his father’s sister, Martha Bernays Freud, who married Sigmund.