Conclusions and Sources

In the end, it’s difficult to not look down upon the public relations field after researching into it.  Even if Ivy Lee’s purpose was, at the time, benevolent—or at least indifferent to sides—the outcome is disturbing.  I’m going to end with a question posed by Morse at the end of his article.  Its open question seems tinged with a foreboding, as if he already knows the answer: ““The new plan has not been in effect long enough to enable one to foresee its real meaning.  At present it is simply interesting.  Much depends on whether it results in disclosing all the facts in which the public has a right to be concerned, or whether it results merely in obtaining for the corporations greater publicity for such facts as are directly favorable to them” (Morse 463).

Sources:

-        Bernays, Edward. "Propaganda by Edward Bernays (1928)." Propaganda by Edward Bernays (1928). History Is a Weapon, n.d. Web. 31 Mar. 2015.

-        Burrows, Edwin G., and Mike Wallace. Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898. New York: Oxford UP, 1999. Print.

-        Coombe, Rosemary J. “The Celebrity Image and Cultural Identity: Publicity Rights and the Subaltern Politics of Gender.” Discourse3 (1992): 59-88. JSTOR. Web. 22 Apr. 2015.

-        Creel, George. Rebel at Large: Recollections of Fifty Crowded Years. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1947. Print.

-        Dos Passos, John. The Big Money. Boston: Mariner, 1964. Print.

-        --. 1919: Volume Two of the U.S.A. Trilogy.  Boston: Mariner, 1959. Print

-        Ewen, Stuart. PR!: A Social History of Spin. New York: Basic, 1996. Print.

-        Henderson, Amy. “Media and the Rise of Celebrity Culture.” OAH Magazine of History4, Communication in History: The Key to Understanding (1992): 49-54. JSTOR. Web. 22 Apr. 2015.

-        Juncker, Clara. "Dos Passos' Movie Star: Hollywood Success and American Failure." American Studies in Scandanavia 22 (1990).  Web. 22 Apr. 2015.

-        Lee, Ivy L. Publicity; Some of the Things It Is and Is Not. New York: Industries Pub., 1925. Print.

-        Morse, Sherman. "An Awakening on Wall Street." American Magazine (1906): 457-63. Google Books. Web. 31 Mar. 2015.

-        Stratton, Matthew. "Start Spreading the News: Irony, Public Opinion, and the Aesthetic Politics of U.S.A." Twentieth Century Literature 54.4 (2008): 419-47. JSTOR. Web. 12 May 2015.