Abstract
During the Great Depression, U.S. Surgeon General Thomas Parran Jr. initiated a public health education campaign that told Americans venereal diseases such as syphilis and gonorrhea needed to be “The next great plague to go.” The next phase of the campaign included his request to the U.S. Congress for public funds for training medical personnel and additional facilities to service those who had contracted VD. This article discusses how Parran used public relations techniques to generate awareness of the dangers of VD, ameliorate the social stigma associated with those diseases, and receive more funding for VD control. This case study of how Parran used media relations, controlled media output, and legislative lobbying provides a means to understand how public relations was used to achieve organizational goals in the 1930s, specifically by a government agency and its leader.
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