John Wiley Hill (November 26, 1890 – March 17, 1977) was an American

public relations Public relations (PR) is the practice of managing and disseminating information from an individual or an organization (such as a business, government agency, or a nonprofit organization) to the public in order to influence their perception. P ...

executive. He co-founded

Hill & Knowlton Hill+Knowlton Strategies is an American global public relations consulting company, headquartered in New York City, United States, with over 80 offices in more than 40 countries. The company was founded in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1927 by John W. Hil ...

with Donald Knowlton in 1933.Miller, Karen S. (1999). ''The Voice of Business: Hill & Knowlton and Postwar Public Relations.''

University of North Carolina Press The University of North Carolina Press (or UNC Press), founded in 1922, is a university press that is part of the University of North Carolina. It was the first university press founded in the Southern United States. It is a member of the Ass ...

Life and career

Hill worked as a

journalist A journalist is an individual that collects/gathers information in form of text, audio, or pictures, processes them into a news-worthy form, and disseminates it to the public. The act or process mainly done by the journalist is called journalism ...

for 18 years, eventually becoming an editor and financial columnist. Hill moved to public relations in 1927, opening a firm in

Cleveland, Ohio Cleveland ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along the southern shore of Lake Erie, across the U.S. ...

. In 1933, he brought in Donald Knowlton and began their firm. It eventually became the world's largest public relations firm. Hill was the mastermind behind a plan called , designed to sow doubt in the minds of the public about the threats of tobacco smoking. The campaign paid scientists to publicly counter the claims of other scientists who said that smoking led to lung cancer. These scientists then later falsely testified to that effect in court when they were sued by smokers who were dying or suffering from lung-related illnesses due to smoking. Hill died in

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

of a

brain tumor A brain tumor occurs when abnormal cells form within the brain. There are two main types of tumors: malignant tumors and benign (non-cancerous) tumors. These can be further classified as primary tumors, which start within the brain, and seconda ...

References

External links

John W. Hill (r) and Don S. Knowlton, of the public relations firm of Hill & Knowlton, giving testimony before the Senate Civil Liberties Committee on steel company public relations campaign
via

United States Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library is ...

John Wiley Hill (1890 - 1977)
via

Public Relations Society of America The Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) is a nonprofit trade association for public relations professionals. It was founded in 1947 by combining the American Council on Public Relations and the National Association of Public Relations Coun ...

1890 births 1977 deaths Public relations pioneers People from Shelbyville, Indiana {{US-business-bio-1890s-stub