J. Marshall HIUS 713 American Entrepreneurship Since 1900 (D02)
Economic Influencers between 1900 and 1929
Introduction
Bruce Barton provided the justifications for much of the pro-business ethos of the 1920s. He created a new ethical and moral paradigm that not only found business to be good and righteous but godly. Indeed, the modern businessman was not only absolved of guilt but, rather, presented as having been made in the image of the Savior.
Extended Explanation of Sources and Justification
To this end, consideration will be given to the economic factors at play during the time of Barton’s initial prominence. A review of primary and secondary sources will be employed to capture his influence and his contributions. It is worth noting that Barton’s life, career, and public exposure continued well after 1930, indeed, he lived until 1967,[1] however, the scope of this exercise will be limited to his activities and impact between 1900-1930.
Analytical Comparison of Two Postbellum Historical Subjects in Terms of Economic Conditions
Having been born, August 5, 1886,[2] Barton was 14 by the turn of the century yet had already been engaged in economic activities since his childhood.[3] Bruce had the classic newspaper boy route.[4] He earned about a $600 a year annual income selling maple syrup off his uncle’s farm after recognizing that if he liked the sweetness, so would his customers. That type of recognition would not be a one-time occurrence for him. Additionally, he also working as a reporter for a local newspaper, after having self-published his own as a child.[5] Thus he was a participant in both the risk-reward gilded age of as close to a free market as any society could have hoped for, and that led to America being the premier world economy,[6] as well as the competition-regulated cartelized economy that was the end result of the Progressive Era leveraged by the elite to ensure their hegemony.[7]
Barton started his collegiate experience at Berea College, one of the work colleges in which students contribute labor to meet the cost of attending. He then transferred to prestigious Amherst College where he was voted “Most Likely to Succeed.”[8] After a stint in construction, he worked for a magazine that folded before it could pay him, but he convinced the creditors to allow him to be paid in advertising space in magazines still being circulated and he earned back what he was due and more. At the publishing firm of P. F. Collier and Son, he created the ad slogan that just fifteen minutes a day and the Harvard Classics would give the consumer a liberal education, and in World War I oversaw the publicity for the United War Campaign that raised $100 million while coining the phrase for the Salvation Army, “A man may be down but he is never out.”[9]
In the wake of the founding of the Federal Reserve, and with the cartelized business and banking interests able via elite privilege to exclusively harness the inflationary currency at long last being printed for them,[10] the time was right in 1919, for him to form Barton, Durstine, and Osborne, which would be the fourth largest ad concern by 1924.[11] Barton was a gifted advertising innovator. He created Betty Crocker during this time.[12] General Motors and General Electric both turned to him for advertising assistance.[13]
Corporate America needed rebranding, an image makeover, and they needed the man who could make them appear human[14] decades before the Citizens United ruling would proclaim them as such. Corporate America had found their champion, their alchemist, who could turn corporate profits into virtue, and they leveraged him heavily.[15] His secret was sincerity, and the truth, recognizing that the public could see through marketing mischief and ridiculous claims. Instead, he had to believe there was a legitimate point to be made about how the business or product actually served the nation, and that would be the message he would share.[16] To those who protested about the validity of his vocation, he had said, “If advertising has flaws, so does marriage.”[17]
However, his greatest contribution to this effort to save Corporate America was the book he published in 1925, The Man Nobody Knows: A Discovery of the Real Jesus. The central thesis of the book was that Jesus was the first advertising executive,[18] the first modern business CEO, and his Twelve Apostles, the first business Board of Directors. Barton posited that religion was completely compatible with cartel-capitalism. His Jesus was a product of the muscular Christianity in firm defiance of the softer image of most depictions, one known for having been a carpenter, capable of physical labor, and who loved the outdoors.[19] With chapters titled “The Executive,” “The Outdoor Man,” “The Sociable Man,” “His Advertisements,” “The Founder of Modern Business,” he reimagined the Savior as a business leader.[20]
It was a best-seller for two years and went through 27 printings.[21] It sold 750,000 copies.[22] Barton sold more copies than F. Scott Fitzgerald did of The Great Gatsby.[23] Having grown up as a neighbor of Ernest Hemmingway, Barton also sold more books than him.[24] His success would earn him many nights as a guest in the White House as an adviser to both President Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover.[25] The Man Nobody Knows: A Discovery of the Real Jesus would also appear as a newspaper serial.[26] His father, the Reverend Barton, actually preceded him on the best seller list by a few weeks with his historical book on Abraham Lincoln.[27]
Concluding Summary
Bruce Barton was a success story in two eras. He made himself from the ground up as an example of American exceptionalism and entrepreneurial spirit during the more Laissez-Faire, free market 19th century, making money through hard work and shrewd business acumen, applying himself, even providing for his own college education at Berea College, a work college, before earning his place at one of the elite American institutions. In the Progressive Era of cartelization, inflated currency, and market bubbles, he recognized a pain point for Corporate America and provided them with a greatly in-demand solution. He then succeeded as an author on the best seller’s list, crafting a tome that would serve as an apologetic for the new gospel of big business that experienced its own Great Awakening in the 1920s.
Bibliography
Barton, Bruce. The Man Nobody Knows: A Discovery of the Real Jesus. 1925. Reprint, Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2000.
“4 Copywriting Tips from Bruce Barton.” Business 2 Community (blog). June 19, 2013, https://advance-lexis-com.ezai.ez.cwmars.org:3243/api/document?collection=news&id=urn:contentItem:58PM-XD31-JCMN-Y3TW-00000-00&context=1516831.
Fried, Richard M. “Introduction.” In The Man Nobody Knows: A Discovery of the Real Jesus. 1925. Reprint, Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2000.
Rothbard, Murray N. “The Origins of the Federal Reserve.” Murray N. Rothbard, “The Origins of the Federal Reserve,” Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics, 2, no. 3 (Fall 1999), 3-4. https://cdn.mises.org/qjae2_3_1.pdf.
Weingast, Barry R. “Market Preserving Federalism and Economic Development.” Law, Economics, and Organization, 11, no. 1 (April 1995) 3. https://www.jstor.org/stable/765068.
[1] Bruce Barton, Ad Man, Is Dead; Author, Former Representative: A Founder of B.B.D.O, Was Denouce[sic] by Roosevlt[sic} as Foe of New Deal Bruce Barton, Leading Ad Man, Dies,” New York Times, July 6, 1967, ProQuest Historical Newspapers; Marilyn Much, “Bruce Barton’s Integrity Was His Ad Ammo Message Received: His Belief in Products Helped Turn BBDO into a Powerhouse That’s Still Marketing,” Investor’s Business Daily, November 19, 2010, LexisNexis.
[2] Richard M. Fried, “Introduction,” in The Man Nobody Knows: A Discovery of the Real Jesus (1925; repr., Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2000), xiii.
[3] Richard M. Fried, “Introduction,” xiv.
[4] “Bruce Barton, Ad Man, Is Dead; Author, Former Representative: A Founder of B.B.D.O, Was Denouce[sic] by Roosevlt[sic} as Foe of New Deal Bruce Barton, Leading Ad Man, Dies,” New York Times, July 6, 1967, ProQuest Historical Newspapers.
[5] Richard M. Fried, “Introduction,” xiv.
[6] Barry R. Weingast, “Market Preserving Federalism and Economic Development,” Law, Economics, and Organization, 11, no.1 (April 1995): 3, https://www.jstor.org/stable/765068.
[7] Murray N. Rothbard, “The Origins of the Federal Reserve,” Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics, 2, no. 3 (Fall 1999), 3-4, https://cdn.mises.org/qjae2_3_1.pdf.
[8] Richard M. Fried, “Introduction,” xiv.
[9] Richard M. Fried, “Introduction,” in The Man Nobody Knows: A Discovery of the Real Jesus (1925; repr., Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2000), xiv-xv; Marilyn Much, “Bruce Barton’s Integrity Was His Ad Ammo Message Received: His Belief in Products Helped Turn BBDO into a Powerhouse That’s Still Marketing,” Investor’s Business Daily, November 19, 2010, LexisNexis.
[10] Murray N. Rothbard, “The Origins of the Federal Reserve,” 6-8, 48.
[11] Marilyn Much, “Bruce Barton’s Integrity Was His Ad Ammo Message Received: His Belief in Products Helped Turn BBDO into a Powerhouse That’s Still Marketing,” Investor’s Business Daily, November 19, 2010, LexisNexis.
[12] Ibid.
[13] Richard M. Fried, “Introduction,” in The Man Nobody Knows: A Discovery of the Real Jesus (1925; repr., Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2000), xvi.
[14] “4 Copywriting Tips from Bruce Barton,” Business 2 Community (blog), June 19, 2013, https://advance-lexis-com.ezai.ez.cwmars.org:3243/api/document?collection=news&id=urn:contentItem:58PM-XD31-JCMN-Y3TW-00000-00&context=1516831.
[15] “Bruce Barton, Ad Man, Is Dead; Author, Former Representative: A Founder of B.B.D.O, Was Denouce[sic] by Roosevlt[sic} as Foe of New Deal Bruce Barton, Leading Ad Man, Dies,” New York Times, July 6, 1967, ProQuest Historical Newspapers.
[16] Marilyn Much, “Bruce Barton’s Integrity Was His Ad Ammo Message Received: His Belief in Products Helped Turn BBDO into a Powerhouse That’s Still Marketing,” Investor’s Business Daily, November 19, 2010, LexisNexis.
[17] “Bruce Barton, Ad Man, Is Dead; Author, Former Representative: A Founder of B.B.D.O, Was Denouce[sic] by Roosevlt[sic} as Foe of New Deal Bruce Barton, Leading Ad Man, Dies,” New York Times, July 6, 1967, ProQuest Historical Newspapers.
[18] Bruce Barton, Ad Man, Is Dead; Author, Former Representative: A Founder of B.B.D.O, Was Denouce[sic] by Roosevlt[sic} as Foe of New Deal Bruce Barton, Leading Ad Man, Dies,” New York Times, July 6, 1967, ProQuest Historical Newspapers; Richard M. Fried, “Introduction,” in The Man Nobody Knows: A Discovery of the Real Jesus (1925; repr., Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2000), ix.
[19] Richard M. Fried, “Introduction,” in The Man Nobody Knows: A Discovery of the Real Jesus (1925; repr., Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2000), xvii-xix.
[20] Bruce Barton, The Man Nobody Knows: A Discovery of the Real Jesus (1925; repr., Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2000), v.
[21] Richard M. Fried, “Introduction,” in The Man Nobody Knows: A Discovery of the Real Jesus (1925; repr., Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2000), vii.
[22] Marilyn Much, “Bruce Barton’s Integrity Was His Ad Ammo Message Received: His Belief in Products Helped Turn BBDO into a Powerhouse That’s Still Marketing,” Investor’s Business Daily, November 19, 2010, LexisNexis.
[23] Richard M. Fried, “Introduction,” in The Man Nobody Knows: A Discovery of the Real Jesus (1925; repr., Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2000), vii.
[24] “4 Copywriting Tips from Bruce Barton,” Business 2 Community (blog), June 19, 2013, https://advance-lexis-com.ezai.ez.cwmars.org:3243/api/document?collection=news&id=urn:contentItem:58PM-XD31-JCMN-Y3TW-00000-00&context=1516831.
[25] Richard M. Fried, “Introduction,” in The Man Nobody Knows: A Discovery of the Real Jesus (1925; repr., Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2000), xxi.
[26] Ibid., xi.
[27] Ibid., xiii.
tekoamt 