Ivy Lee
Ivy Ledbetter Lee (born July 16, 1877 in Cedartown , Georgia , † November 9, 1934 in New York , NY ) was one of the founders of modern public relations (PR) alongside Edward Bernays . He was also an author .
Act
Lee studied at Princeton , worked as a newspaper reporter from 1899 and reported, among other things, from Wall Street , the financial center of the United States of America . Together with George Parker, Lee opened the third PR agency in the USA, Parker & Lee, in 1904. Unlike the other agencies, which primarily acted as a buffer between companies and the media, covering up and disguising news, Ivy Lee supplied the public with information. Lee was one of the first PR managers to use press releases as a tool for companies to communicate with the public. He is considered the founder of PR crisis management .
From 1906 Lee worked for the Pennsylvania Railroad , which, like other railroads, was in disrepute. The Pennsylvania Railroad was mainly accused of price gouging and saving at the expense of safety. With positive press reports, lectures and other activities, Lee created the image of a customer-friendly company in public. In 1912, Lee became an assistant to the management of the Pennsylvania Railroad.
Ivy Lee's most prominent clients included entrepreneurs John D. Rockefeller, Jr. and his father, John Rockefeller Sr., known after a bloodied and crushed strike by workers and their families at a Rockefeller Empire coal mine in Ludlow , Colorado in 1914 as the Ludlow massacre , Ivy Lee improved the image of Rockefeller Jr. and the mining company. After this success, Ivy Lee increased the reputation of the unpopular oil billionaire Rockefeller Sr. Lee launched positive reports from the private life of Rockefeller and thus created models for the later home stories, in which celebrities give insights into their private lives.
Later Lee worked for numerous large US companies, including the steel company Bethlehem Steel .
Reporters named him Poison Ivy for spreading untruths in connection with the Ludlow massacre . Ivy Lee came under further criticism for his work as a PR advisor to the US subsidiaries in the F-circle of the German chemical cartel IG Farben , which promoted the rise of the National Socialists . Lee traveled to Germany several times, met business leaders and the greats of the NSDAP . In the spring of 1934 he had to answer to a congressional committee of inquiry . Details of Lee's work in Germany are still in the dark.
Ivy Ledbetter Lee died on November 9, 1934 at the age of 57 from complications from a brain tumor.
Theoretical foundations
With his Declaration of Principles published in 1906, Ivy Lee tried to define standards for his PR work. The first paragraph read: This is not a secret press bureau. All our work is done in the open. We aim to supply news. (This is not a secret press office. Our work is transparent. Our aim is to disseminate news.) According to the communication scientist Albert Oeckl, this publication was the birth of modern public relations.
literature
- Ray Eldon Hiebert: Courtier to the Crowd: A Biography of Ivy Ledbetter Lee . Iowa State University Press, Ames, Iowa 1966
Individual evidence
- ↑ Michael Kunczik: Public Relations. Concepts and Theories. 4th completely revised edition Böhlau Verlag, Cologne 2002
Web links
- Information about Ivy Lee by Michael Turney, professor emeritus of communication studies Northern Kentucky University (Engl.)
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Lee, Ivy |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Lee, Ivy Ledbetter |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American author and philanthropist; Co-founder of modern public relations |
| DATE OF BIRTH | July 16, 1877 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | at Cedartown , Georgia |
| DATE OF DEATH | November 9, 1934 |
| Place of death | New York , NY |