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219 Coda “I still feel that she is looking over my shoulder” The day after Doris E. Fleischman died in July 1980, Edward L. Bernays issued a press release that was as revealing of him as it was of her. It began: “Doris Fleischman Bernays, 88, pioneer counsel on public relations, author, editor, mother, honorary LLD, Lucy Stoner, musician, housewife, feminist, author of the 1955 bestseller, A Wife Is Many Women, died yesterday at Mount Vernon hospital in Cambridge from consequences of a stroke.” The release was picked up by the PR Newswire and sent to newspaper obituary editors.1 Seeing beyond the baroque Bernays bombast, a New York Times reporter boiled down the release’s information, gathered more, and wrote a nine-paragraph obituary .2 In Los Angeles, the obituary surprised a journalism professor who had spent several years studying women in journalism history and thought she knew the names of the most accomplished ones. Like many journalism professors, she was well aware of Bernays. But she had never heard of his wife, who, according to the Times, had been his professional partner for more than fifty years. Who was she? Exactly what did she do? That obituary sparked this book. I first used it in a course I was teaching on women in the media, handing out copies to my students to help them appreciate women’s early success in public relations. I had no plans for doing anything more until the fall of 1985, when I was the editor of a scholarly journal, Journalism History , and accepted an article about Bernays that I wanted to illustrate with photographs . The author had none, but he suggested I call Bernays and ask him to lend me some of his. Although I couldn’t imagine that this celebrated man would do that, the author said he had been remarkably cooperative when he’d interviewed him, so I did call. Bernays quickly offered to help me, saying he would send several photos that sounded useful. But after waiting three weeks and not receiving them, I started to worry. I couldn’t lay out the article without them and needed to get my pages to the printer soon. I apologized for calling him again and he apologized for not having found all the photos he had in mind, but he promised I’d get them shortly. They still didn’t arrive. This time when I called he said he’d found them but hadn’t had a chance to get copies made. He’d take care of it soon. No photos arrived, so I called once more, stressing my production deadline pressures, and he decided that rather than making me wait any longer he’d give me permission to copy any photos I wanted from his autobiography. My frustration at several delays made me 220 Anonymous in Their Own Names glad for an easy solution, despite my disappointment at having to use previously published photos. By this time I’d become comfortable talking with him, and he’d seemed pleased to hear from me each time I called. That gave me the confidence to do something I never would have done if our contacts had ended—as I thought they would—after one phone call. When he’d finished telling me which photos from his book he thought were most relevant to the article and we were ready to hang up, I blurted out that I’d like to study his late wife. His voice changed. Previously businesslike, he became almost giddy as he told me that she was the first married woman to get a passport in her “maiden” name, that she was an early feminist, that she wrote a wonderful book, that she was brilliant . What about her public relations work, I asked. Hadn’t she been his partner? If I studied her, I’d need to know a great deal about her contributions to his business . Would he talk with me about them? Yes, of course he would, he said. I should come to Cambridge to interview him, and stay at his home. His efforts to ensure that my journal’s article ran with photos of him had reminded me of what a virtuoso self-promoter he was, making me all the more surprised that he was so willing to discuss Fleischman’s role in the achievements for which he alone had been recognized and lauded. But that wasn’t the only reason I was taken aback. In addition...

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