More Power to You: Fifty Editorials From Every Week
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This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact and remains as true to the original work as possible.
(It was very late in the afternoon. If you would like to l...)
It was very late in the afternoon. If you would like to learn the measure of a man that is the time of day to watch him. We are all half an inch taller in the morning than at night; it is fairly easy to take a large view of things when the mind is rested and the nerves are calm. But the day is a steady drain of small annoyances, and the difference in the size of men becomes hourly more apparent. The little man loses his temper; the big man takes a firmer hold.
Calvin Coolidge, a Man with Vision - But Not a Visionary
(This work has been selected by scholars as being cultural...)
This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations.
Bruce Barton was an American entrepreneur, author, congressman, advertising executive, one of the most prominent representatives of the first generation of creators of the advertising business. He was a co-founder of the advertising agency "Batten, Barton, Durstine & Osborn."
Background
Bruce Barton was born on August 5, 1886, in Robbins, Tennessee. He was the son of William Eleazar Barton, a Congregationalist minister, and Esther Treat Bushnell, an elementary school teacher. His father brought the family from Tennessee, where he had been an itinerant preacher, to Oak Park, Illinois, before Bruce was a year old, and there William Barton became pastor of the First Congregational Church.
Education
In 1903, Bruce Barton enrolled at Berea College but soon he transferred to Amherst College in Massachusetts, which he graduated in 1907. At college, he was a member of Phi Beta Kappa.
Bruce Barton lived in Chicago from 1907 to 1911. He took up the post of an editor for small religious magazines, "Home Herald" and "Housekeeper." In 1912 Barton moved to New York, he became an assistant sales manager at the famous publishing house "P. F. Collier & Son."
His most successful assignment at "P. F. Collier & Son" was penning the advertising text for "Harvard classics." The written text along with the headlines was a huge hit, with more than 400,000 copies sold.
After his failure at advertising, Bruce Barton moved back to journalism and took up the profile of an editor for the magazine, "Every Week" in 1914. He served in this position until 1918.
In 1918, he started working as a publicist for the "United War Work Campaign," a fund drive for charitable organizations aiding the troops in World War I.
In 1919, Bruce Barton, along with Roy Durstine and Alex Osborn, formed an advertising agency, "Barton, Durstine & Osborne." He served as the chief copywriter and the creative in-charge of the agency. No sooner the reputation of "Barton, Durstine & Osborne" started growing, and some large companies joined them such as "United States Steel," "General Electric and General Motors and General Mills."
In 1928 "Barton, Durstine & Osborne" merged with George Batten agency and became "Batten, Barton, Durstine & Osborn." Bruce Barton served as the operational head of the agency, transforming it to become one of the industry's leaders.
Meanwhile, despite his business acumen and expertise, it was his journalistic skills that brought him much fame.
People knew Barton as the author and a columnist rather than the co-founder of "Batten, Barton, Durstine & Osborn." His written work on themes of optimism and success was hugely popular. His writings were collected in books titled, "More Power To You" and "Better Days," published in 1919 and 1924.
In 1925 Barton released a book, "The Man Nobody Knows" that transformed his writing career completely, making him one of the greatest successful writers.
"The Man Nobody Knows" provided an image makeover for Jesus, who was presented as a go-getting young executive who picked up twelve men to form an organization that dominated the world. Though critics disparaged the book for interconnecting business and religion, people, in general, loved the book, making it a bestseller for two years.
In 1926, he wrote another book, "The Book Nobody Knows," which much like its predecessor, provided a revamped image of the Holy Bible. He penned his reflections about the Bible in the book.
From 1919, Bruce Barton served as an advisor for the Republican Party. In 1937, he ran for the office, winning himself a seat in the United States Congress, which was left vacant due to the death of the incumbent. He served a successful two terms in the United States House of Representatives until 1941, representing Manhattan district.
In 1940, Bruce Barton helped secure the Republican presidential nomination for Wendell Willkie. The same year, he tried for the seat of the United States Senator from New York, in an attempt to oust Democratic senator, James Mead but failed.
After the defeat, he resolved never to contest for a public office and resumed his duties in his advertising agency. The agency, which was primarily known for giving an image makeover to corporate giants, changed its modus operandi post World War II and appointment of Ben Duffy as its president, who moved the company into the advertising of consumer goods.
Later "Lever Brothers," "Campbell Soup," and "Revlon" joining the agency. In 1961, Bruce Barton retired as the chairman of the board. At the time of his retirement, his company "Batten, Barton, Durstine & Osborn" ranked as the fourth-largest advertising firm in the United States.
Post-retirement, he continued with his writing career in his office at Madison Avenue, continuously writing for the popular press.
Bruce Barton became the most forceful spokesman for the view that religious faith could lead one to business success, which was a dominant theme of the decade. He said: "Christ would be a national advertiser today, I am sure, as He was a great advertiser in His own day. He thought of His life as a business."
Politics
Politically, Bruce Barton was an active participant and avid supporter of the Republican Party. He was strongly opposed to the United States President Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal. Furthermore, he strongly supported his fellow alumnus, Calvin Coolidge in the latter's trysts in the Party.
Views
Quotations:
"It would do the world good if every man would compel himself occasionally to be alone. Most of the world's progress has come out of such loneliness."
"If you have anything really valuable to contribute to the world it will come through the expression of your personality, that single spark of divinity that sets you off and makes you different from every other living creature."
Membership
Phi Beta Kappa
,
United States
Personality
Upon Bruce Barton's death, the advertising company, "Batten, Barton, Durstine & Osborn" of which he was founder, described him as "The Man Everybody Knew" playing a spoof on his 1925 bestselling book, "The Man Nobody Knows."
Quotes from others about the person
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.
Interests
Politicians
Calvin Coolidge
Connections
Bruce Barton had married Esther Maude Randall on October 2, 1913. They had three children: Betsey Barton, Randall Barton, and Bruce Barton, Jr.