Granted, it’s a far cry from baseball’s Cooperstown shrine or the Hollywood Walk of Fame. But PR now has a museum to call its own, sort of.
Granted, it’s a far cry from baseball’s Cooperstown shrine or the
Hollywood Walk of Fame. But PR now has a museum to call its own, sort
of.
New York PR execs Barry and Shelley Spector unveiled the online Museum
of Public Relations in 1997 and have since developed it into a
must-click for PR history buffs. The site, located at www.prmuseum.com,
honors industry legends while at the same time attempting to eradicate
popular misconceptions about PR.
The idea came about from the couple’s friendship with PR pioneer Edward
Bernays during his last years. Asked what he intended to do with his
house - stocked with letters, books, photographs and voluminous records
- Bernays said that he hoped to turn it into a museum. The remark was
off-the-cuff and his belongings ended up being divided among his family,
but the Spectors took his wishes seriously enough to carry them out.
Current exhibitions on the site honor Bernays, agency operator Carl
Byoir and AT&T PR executive Arthur Page. In the future, the Spectors
hope to examine the role that women played in PR’s early history. One
worthy candidate, according to Barry, would be Bernays’ wife and
associate, Doris Fleischman.
But the site’s future will largely depend on financial resources. ’We’re
non-profit and we depend on help,’ Spector emphasized. ’We find time to
do this thing out of love for it.’
