Pioneers of Promotion: How Press Agents for Buffalo Bill, P. T. Barnum, and the World's Columbian Exposition Created Modern Marketing

Abstract

Pioneers of Promotion chronicles the professionalization of public relations in the late nineteenth century by focusing on three seminal practitioners. Richard Francis “Tody” Hamilton, as P. T. Barnum's protégé and press agent, authored countless feature stories for newspapers and magazines. Demonstrating that “news” could be carefully crafted to stimulate consumer demand for particular goods and services in the guise of legitimate journalism, Hamilton perfected methodologies that publicity agents ever since have employed to shape public discourse. John M. Burke, touting Buffalo Bill and his Wild West spectacle, induced the “birth of the modern concept of celebrity” (p. 84). He learned that “the appearance of authenticity” sold far more effectively than honesty or accuracy (p. 92). Branding of personalities and places and products matured into a social science. Burke achieved “the promotional equivalent of ‘Taylorism’” through methodologies that became standards of professional practice (p. 297). The significance of these developments extends far beyond a story of cowboys and Indians.