Bruce Fairchild Barton
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Bruce Fairchild Barton (August 5, 1886 – July 5, 1967) was an American author, advertising executive, and Republican politician. He represented Manhattan in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1937 to 1941. In 1940, he ran for election to the U.S. Senate, but was defeated by incumbent Senator
James M. Mead James Michael Mead (December 27, 1885March 15, 1964) was an American politician from New York. A Democrat, among the offices in which he served was member of the Erie County Board of Supervisors (1914-1915), New York State Assembly (1915-1918 ...
. During the 1940 campaign, Barton became a high-profile target of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who was running for re-election to a third term and identified his opposition with the epithet "
Martin Martin may refer to: Places * Martin City (disambiguation) * Martin County (disambiguation) * Martin Township (disambiguation) Antarctica * Martin Peninsula, Marie Byrd Land * Port Martin, Adelie Land * Point Martin, South Orkney Islands Austral ...
, Barton, and Fish!"


Biography

Barton was born in
Robbins, Tennessee Robbins is an unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) in Scott County, Tennessee. As of the 2010 census, its population is 287. It is concentrated along U.S. Route 27 between Huntsville and Elgin, in Tennessee's Cumberland ...
in 1886, the son of a Congregational clergyman. He grew up in various places throughout the U.S., including the metro Chicago area. Barton was raised in Oak Park, Illinois, ten miles from downtown Chicago on the rail line. Bruce Barton's father, William E. Barton, was a prolific writer and a devout Christian pastor serving the First Congregational Church for over 20 years. Barton's mother, Esther Treat Bushnell, was an elementary school teacher who was descended from a number of colonial Connecticut leaders including Francis Bushnell, Robert Treat, and John Davenport. Barton's siblings were Charles William Barton (b. 1887), Helen (b. 1889), and Robert Shawmut Barton (b. 1894). Barton's parents also took in a boy by the name of Webster Betty, in addition to an African-American girl named Rebecca, whose mother had asked Barton's parents to take care of her. Journalism appealed to Barton even as a child and he sold newspapers in his free time when he was just nine. Later on during his teenage years he served as the editor for his high school newspaper, and became a reporter for a local newspaper called the Oak Park Weekly. Barton also helped run his uncle's maple syrup business, which became successful with his contributions. Barton first enrolled in Berea College (where his father attended college) during 1903 and later transferred to
Amherst College Amherst College ( ) is a private liberal arts college in Amherst, Massachusetts. Founded in 1821 as an attempt to relocate Williams College by its then-president Zephaniah Swift Moore, Amherst is the third oldest institution of higher educatio ...
in Massachusetts,Dennis Wepman
"Barton, Bruce Fairchild"
American National Biography Online, February 2000. Retrieved November 14, 2013.
where he graduated in 1907.


Ad Man

Barton worked as a publicist and magazine editor before co-founding the Barton, Durstine & Osborn (BDO) advertising agency in 1919. Nine years later the agency merged with the George Batten agency to become Batten, Barton, Durstine & Osborn ( BBDO). Barton replaced
Roy S. Durstine Roy Sarles Durstine (December 13, 1886 – November 28, 1962) was an American newspaper reporter, author, and advertising executive who co-founded BBDO and since 1939 was president of Roy S. Durstine, Inc. Early life Durstine was born on Decem ...
as president of BBDO during 1939 and then headed the BBDO agency until 1961, all while helping his business partners and employees toward establishing Madison Avenue in New York City as the Mecca for the advertising industry, advancing institutional advertising for American corporations, and developing BBDO into one of the major creative advertising firms operating in the United States. Among other famous BBDO campaigns, Barton created the character of
Betty Crocker Betty Crocker is a brand and fictional character used in advertising campaigns for food and recipes. The character was originally created by the Washburn-Crosby Company in 1921 following a contest in the '' Saturday Evening Post''. In 1954, ...
. He is also credited with naming
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and General Electric (and creating an early design of the circular GE corporate logo and catch phrase). Barton was also a member of the
Peabody Award The George Foster Peabody Awards (or simply Peabody Awards or the Peabodys) program, named for the American businessman and philanthropist George Peabody, honor the most powerful, enlightening, and invigorating stories in television, radio, and ...
s Board of Jurors from 1940 to 1942.


Republican politician

Initially supporting progressive political policies as a young man, Barton later became an active supporter of the
Republican Party Republican Party is a name used by many political parties around the world, though the term most commonly refers to the United States' Republican Party. Republican Party may also refer to: Africa *Republican Party (Liberia) * Republican Part ...
in 1919, and he later served as an advisor for both the Republican Party and several Republican presidential candidates from the time of
Calvin Coolidge Calvin Coolidge (born John Calvin Coolidge Jr.; ; July 4, 1872January 5, 1933) was the 30th president of the United States from 1923 to 1929. Born in Vermont, Coolidge was a History of the Republican Party (United States), Republican lawyer ...
during the 1920s to that of
Dwight Eisenhower Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower (born David Dwight Eisenhower; ; October 14, 1890 – March 28, 1969) was an American military officer and statesman who served as the 34th president of the United States from 1953 to 1961. During World War II, ...
during the 1950s. As a staunch opponent of U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and the
New Deal The New Deal was a series of programs, public work projects, financial reforms, and regulations enacted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the United States between 1933 and 1939. Major federal programs agencies included the Civilian Cons ...
, Barton offered his public relations services to many Republican candidates over the years. Barton won a special election to fill the unexpired term of U.S. Representative Democrat
Theodore A. Peyser Theodore Albert Peyser (February 18, 1873 – August 8, 1937) was an American businessman and politician who served three terms as a Democratic member of the United States House of Representatives from New York from 1932 to 1937. Biography Peys ...
, who died on August 8, 1937. Barton eventually served two terms (1937–1941) in the U.S. House of Representatives, representing the Manhattan house district and he later ran an unsuccessful
1940 A calendar from 1940 according to the Gregorian calendar, factoring in the dates of Easter and related holidays, cannot be used again until the year 5280. Events Below, the events of World War II have the "WWII" prefix. January *January ...
campaign for election as U.S. Senator from New York. During his time in Congress, Barton was a staunch opponent of Franklin Roosevelt.


Writer

As the author of many bestselling guidebooks, Barton also wrote literally hundreds of popular magazines articles and syndicated newspaper columns, offering his readers advice and inspiration for attaining Barton's own idealization of the American Dream, based largely upon Barton's meshing of his own life as a "small town boy" and sectarian Christian beliefs in with his admiration of certain American business and industry leaders ("Service").


''The Man Nobody Knows'' - Christian apologetics for wealthy businessmen

Barton had projected many Christian Biblical themes throughout his works completed within his varied writing career, due in part to his own strong religious convictions. One historian writes: "Barton believed incurably in material progress, in self-improvement, in individualism, and in the Judeo-Christian ethic, and none of the profound crises through which his generation lived appreciably changed the tenor of his writings or their capacity to reflect what masses of Americans, optimists in the progressive tradition, apparently continued to want to hear." Barton's most famous book was, '' The Man Nobody Knows'' (1925), a " boosterish melding of religion with business" that coupled with "new communication and advertising media", provided the "cultural shift that encouraged the public display of spiritual allegiances that once belonged to the realm of private life", while amplifying the widely perceived public adoration of American business during the 1920s. In this book, Barton envisions Jesus as if he were alive as a
man's man Masculinity (also called manhood or manliness) is a set of attributes, behaviors, and roles associated with men and boys. Masculinity can be theoretically understood as socially constructed, and there is also evidence that some behaviors con ...
in the present day of the 1920s while criticizing the overly meek Jesus that people were used to during that time. Barton also depicts Jesus as a "strong magnetic" executive businessman, similar to himself. In the 1925 edition of ''The Man Nobody Knows'' Barton incorporated controversial chapter titles leading into the exploration of Barton's Jesus-as-businessman themes, such as calling Jesus a modern "Executive", postulating that Jesus communicated effectively by "His Advertisements", and hailing Jesus as "The Founder of Modern Business" among others. In the much later 1956 edition of ''The Man Nobody Knows'', editors at Bobbs-Merrill "heavily amended" Barton's text with his permission, cutting out the references to business and advertising. along with excerpts featuring popular celebrities of the 1920s, such as Henry Ford, George Perkins, and Jim Jeffries.


Role in American history

According to historian Otis Pease, through his careers in advertising, popular writing and Republican activism: : Barton came to embody for a generation of historians and social commentators those middle-class values which (they asserted) had dominated America in the twenties but which the depression exposed as obsolete, shallow if not meretricious, and destructive of liberal ideals....Roosevelt's speechwriters were pleased at how effectively during the 1940 campaign their famous slogan "
Martin Martin may refer to: Places * Martin City (disambiguation) * Martin County (disambiguation) * Martin Township (disambiguation) Antarctica * Martin Peninsula, Marie Byrd Land * Port Martin, Adelie Land * Point Martin, South Orkney Islands Austral ...
, Barton, and Fish!" stamped
arton Arton may refer to: People ;Given name *Arton Zekaj, Serbian footballer of Kosovo Albanian descent ;Surname *Anthony Bourne-Arton, British Conservative Party politician *Oliver Rendell Arton Places * ''Arton Mill'', Belgium; a protected place, s ...
as a political reactionary. Pease disagreed with that hostile portrayal and instead argued that Barton was a leader of the liberal wing of the Republican Party, urging that it broaden its appeal to reach the working man in the average voter. He helped secure the Republican nomination for liberal Wendell Willkie in 1940. His book on Jesus, wrote Pease, was silly when it said that Jesus was at heart an advertising expert and sales executive. However, Pease argued, the book was:Pease, "Barton, Bruce" pp 62-63. :fundamentally critical of the commercial ethos of the day. Its principal thrust was to urge business minded Americans, concerned with success, to model of their lives on a man who, Barton insisted, exemplified humaneness, sociability, service to others, the leadership to inspire ordinary people to rise above themselves, a capacity to love everyone as persons but to tolerate in no one hypocrisy, cruelty, or misuse of power, and the courage to defend one's beliefs and if necessary to die for them that others might be saved.


Sexual affair with BBDO employee

Public attention was drawn to a sexual affair that Barton secretly conducted from 1928 to 1932 with BBDO employee Frances Wagner King. King had originally presented herself to Barton and others at BBDO as an unmarried woman. Her husband later threatened to sue Barton for alienation of affection. Barton paid the Kings $25,000 in hush money. Later, during a 1932 appointment with her attorney, Mrs. King informed Barton that she was suing him for slander and seeking damages of $250,000 based on an unfavorable work reference he had provided to a potential employer of King.''The Man Everybody Knew: Bruce Barton and the Making of Modern America'', Richard M. Fried. Ivan H. Dee (Publisher), 2005. Chicago. pp. 139-141. Mrs. King also informed Barton she was working on a novel about an advertising man based loosely on Barton's own private and public life, but that she would not publish her work and would drop her slander lawsuit if Barton would settle the matter with a payment of $50,000 to King. The newspapers reported about the Barton and King sexual affair, and other King allegations of impropriety by Barton, after learning of Barton's arrest under a civil order from Mrs. King's slander suit. Barton filed a blackmail criminal charge against Mrs. King on April 17, 1933. Her criminal trial ran from July 18 to August 2, 1933. On August 2, 1933, a jury found Frances Wagner King guilty of blackmail. After Mrs. King had served two years, an appeal court reduced her sentence to three to six years. The attorney handling Mrs. King's slander suit against Barton had paid to typeset King's novel, arranged to have Barton arrested, and offered to rescind the slander lawsuit against Barton upon a settlement paid to King. King's attorney was disbarred in 1936.


Death

Bruce Barton died at his home at 117 East 55th Street in New York City in 1967.


Electoral history


1925 donation request letter for Berea College

In 1925, Barton wrote a letter to 24 rich men who all replied with at least $1,000.


References


External links

* *
Personal and professional papers of Bruce Barton at the Wisconsin Historical Society (over 125,000 documents.)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Barton, Bruce Fairchild 1886 births 1967 deaths People from Scott County, Tennessee American advertising executives Amherst College alumni Writers from New York City Writers from Tennessee Republican Party members of the United States House of Representatives from New York (state) Old Right (United States) 20th-century American politicians