9. Conclusion and implications for PR development
It is difficult to engage with what public relations literature says about the publicity and information bureaux because little scholarship exists on either term. However, analysis of the popular press from 1891 to 1918 shows something signifi- cant about the development of public relations as a practice. Cutlip (1994) used the creation of the Boston-based Publicity Bureau as the starting point of institutionalized public relations practice. As Lamme and Russell (2010) point out, selecting certain events as the official start of PR practice is problematic because these events are frequently arbitrary. Equally problematic is Cutlip’s (1994) focus on the Publicity Bureau’s corporate identity because it suggests the beginning of modern public relations practice emerged because corporate interests were represented by the Publicity Bureau. It is important for PR historiography to recognize that not only did publicity and information bureaux emerge in different contexts, but they also emerged simultaneously in government, politics, business, and at the grassroots. This analysis shows that the so-called professionalization of public relations largely resulted from both a top-down and bottom-up development. Politics, government, and grassroots influences in public relations development are largely ignored in preference for a corporate narrative. Interestingly the government’s publicity and information bureaux were more respected than their business counterparts. This too illustrates that rooting early public relations practice in corporations is not only inaccurate, but fails to provide the professional legitimacy modern PR seeks through this narrative.
