Although the term "public relations" was not coined until 1919, it did not emerge as a part of the public consciousness until the 1960s and 1970s (Mercer, 1989, p. 5). Today public relations has emerged as a thriving $0.5 billion-a-year industry with an expectation of a 12% annual growth rate (Mercer, p. 5). Scrutiny of these dates indicates that the growth of public relations, understood as the art of creating and sustaining a positive public image, coincides with important changes in the social and economic status of women. First, in 1919 at about the same time the phrase "public relations" was born, the American suffragette movement was successful in its campaign for women's right to vote. Secondly, public relation's first boom period in the 60s and 70s coincides with the rise of feminism and the reshaping of the personal and social roles of women. Scrutiny of public relations and women's changing roles in the 20th century emphasizes the centrality of controlling the image in modern culture and women's contributions to its fashioning.
"Today women have achieved more success in public relations than in almost any other profession" (Rotman, 1995, p. 13). The molding of public opinion in the US is as old as the country itself, dating back to the patriots' earliest efforts to hasten the start of the American Revolution by passing the Declaration of Independence (Rotman, p. 12). Statesmen such as Alexander Hamilton and James Monroe "practiced it intuitively" when they presented the Constitution for ratification (Culligan, 1982, p. xii). Yet women such as Abigail Adams and Sarah Bache, the daughter of Benjamin Franklin, also served as some of the earliest successful shapers of public opinion (Rotman, 1995, p. 13). In his groundbreaking study of public relations, Crystallizing Public Opinion (first published in 1923), Edward Bernays cleverly argues that it is not so much what an individual does as the manner in which it is h...