Edward L. Bernays; Pioneer in Public Relations

Edward L. Bernays, 103, who laid the cornerstones of modern public relations by selling America on everything from Presidents to Ivory soap. Bernays opened his first public relations agency in 1919 and kept working well into his 90s. Among those he promoted were opera singer Enrico Caruso, car maker Henry Ford and inventor Thomas Edison. He worked for every President from Calvin Coolidge to Dwight D. Eisenhower. Born in Vienna and a nephew of Sigmund Freud, Bernays yearned to make public relations a recognized profession. He taught the first college course on the subject, at New York University in 1923. That same year, he wrote the book “Crystallizing Public Opinion.” In Cambridge, Mass., on Thursday.