Rex Harlow

It has been twenty years since the death of one of the most significant and thoughtful of the pubic relations pioneers: Rex Harlow. Harlow died at the age of 101 following a career of scholarly research, much writing and thoughtful analysis. Any one in the profession today owes it themselves not to forget Harlow or the contributions he made. His is a name that is not mentioned nearly as often as other of the profession's founding fathers, namely Edward Bernays and Ivy Lee. This is unfortunate because Harlow did much to advance the importance of this social science and increasingly popular profession.

In 1976, Harlow made a bold attempt to encapsulate just what public relations was at that point and, with that information, articulate what it should become. The result was that insight served as a solid bridge between the past and future. He began by identifing and analyzing as many definitons of "public relations" as he could. He ended up examining 472 definitions that had been put forth by other practitioners and scholars since the early days of he twentieth century and interviewing nearly 100 current professionals. Out of that impressive research, Harlow produced his own 87-word definition that presented public relations in a new light.

I quote what I view as the key passage from it: "Public relations is the distinctive management function which helps establish and maintain mutual lines of communication, acceptance and cooperation between between an oganization and its publics..."  For the first time, public relations was being depicted as an act between multiple entities or publics of establishing and maintaing partnerships. Up till then, it was primarily viewed an act of persuasion. Harlow's insight continues to shine today. That was only one of Harlow's contributions to public relations. He also created "Public Relations Review" and "Public Relations Research Review," two highly-acclaimed research publications, and founded the American Council on Public Relations, which later became the Public Relations Society of America. Happy centennial, Professor Harlow.