Carl Robert Byoir was an American consultant who helped establish public relations as a recognized profession.
Background
Carl Robert Byoir was born on June 24, 1888 in Des Moines, Iowa, the son of Benjamin Byoir and Minna Gunyan. The elder Byoir had emigrated from Poland to the United States in 1875; he was an affectionate father but a poor provider whose business ventures--including running a restaurant and a clothing store--met with only marginal success. Carl Byoir, therefore, had to work from the age of ten.
Education
Carl Byoir went to high school and received a general education in Des Moines, Iowa. He also went to the University of Iowa in 1906. He graduated in 1910 with all college expenses paid and savings of $6, 500. Byoir received the LL. B. from Columbia Law School in 1912 and was admitted to the bar but never practiced.
Career
At fourteen, while still in high school, Carl Byoir became a reporter for the Iowa State Register and at seventeen was city editor of the Waterloo (Iowa) Times-Tribune. Entering the University of Iowa in 1906, Byoir negotiated printing contracts to publish thirty-seven college yearbooks, including Iowa's Hawkeye.
While a senior at Columbia, he purchased the American rights to the kindergarten training methods of Maria Montessori, the Italian educator; he introduced the system to America and reportedly earned a profit of $63, 000 from the franchise. In 1913, in association with Morgan Shepard, Byoir became publisher of John Martin's Book for Children, a read-aloud magazine for preschool children.
After disposing of his interest in this venture, Byoir began to work for William Randolph Hearst in 1914, and in 1916 was promoted to circulation manager of Cosmopolitan. When the United States entered World War I, Byoir was called to Washington by George Creel, chairman of the Committee on Public Information (CPI), to become an associate chairman of the group, which conducted the first massive wartime propaganda effort by the United States. Byoir was, in effect, the number-two man of the CPI; he developed new skills and insights into the techniques of influencing public opinion and acquired a wide and influential acquaintanceship.
After the armistice, Byoir was sent by President Wilson to the peace conference at Versailles to help publicize American peace aims. For a short period after the war he was an adviser to President Thomas Masaryk of Czechoslovakia. Byoir's immediate postwar activities included interests in an import-export business, several patent-medicine companies (whose advertising came under sharp criticism), and a company that made automobile parts.
Moving to Cuba in 1929 for health reasons, Byoir began a new career by leasing two English-language newspapers that he used to stimulate American trade and tourism. This led to a contract with the government to promote Cuba as a vacationland. Although Byoir denied any political orientation, he was a de facto supporter of the dictatorship of President Gerardo Machado. Carl Byoir and Associates was organized in 1930 to serve this account.
Byoir returned to New York in 1932 and took over the promotion and management of several Florida hotel properties.
He rapidly accumulated a diversified list of corporate and trade association clients. Also in 1932, Byoir persuaded President Hoover that propaganda techniques could create jobs at no cost to the government by mobilizing public opinion in support of expanded production and the free enterprise system.
He called the effort a "War Against Depression" and solicited the support of such powerful groups as the Association of National Advertisers, the American Federation of Labor, and the American Legion. This campaign, which he directed as a public service, was his only major failure; the economic problems of the Depression could not be solved by a public relations campaign. Byoir achieved national prominence as the creator and general director of the "Birthday Balls" celebrating the birthday of President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Organized in thousands of American communities, these fetes in 1934, 1935, 1936, and 1937 raised some $4 million to benefit research on infantile paralysis under the aegis of the Warm Springs Foundation. Controversy swirled around Byoir in 1940 when a junior partner of the Byoir firm was accused of having handled (in 1934 and 1935) publicity in the United States for the German Tourist Information Office. Representative Wright Patman of Texas charged that Carl Byoir was a Nazi agent.
Byoir demanded and got an investigation; he was cleared by the House Un-American Activities Committee and the Department of Justice, but the episode caused criticism of Byoir and of public relations practitioners in general. At the time, Byoir represented the Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company (A&P), which had successfully defeated antichain store legislation sponsored by Patman.
In 1942 the A&P and Byoir were indicted on criminal charges of violating the Sherman Antitrust Act, and in 1946 Byoir was convicted and fined $5, 000. Three years later a civil action was brought by the Justice Department seeking the dismemberment of A&P. Byoir presented the A&P position in large-space advertisements in some 2, 000 newspapers.
The suit was settled in 1954 by a consent judgment that left the food chain substantially intact. The last legal clash between major economic powers in which Byoir was a figure occurred in 1953. The Pennsylvania Motor Truck Association brought a $250 million antitrust suit against the Eastern Railroad Presidents Conference and Carl Byoir and Associates. The railroads filed a counterclaim, each complainant charging the other with conspiring to injure its business. Beyond giving a pretrial deposition in behalf of the railroads, Byoir had only a limited connection with this case, which was ultimately decided by the Supreme Court in favor of the railroads.
He died in New York City. The firm Byoir founded continued to flourish and in 1977 ranked third in size in the public relations field.
In March 1978, Carl Byoir and Associates merged with the advertising firm of Foote, Cone and Belding Communications, but continued to operate independently and retained its own name.
He was an imaginative, resourceful, toughminded advocate and strategist for the businesses he served.
Quotations:
A considerable segment of opinion agreed with a protest Byoir addressed to President Franklin D. Roosevelt regarding Patman's allegations: "Congressman Patman's attack, " he wrote, "is born of malice. "
Over the years Byoir counseled clients whose products ranged from ball-point pens to photographic supplies and greeting cards and influenced an estimated one hundred industries. "We will be judged by public opinion, " he told his associates, "by the job we do. "
Personality
Quotes from others about the person
“Carl Byoir may not have moved mountains, but he definitely made a career of motivating people to do it for him. ”
The Museum of Public Relations states "Carl Byoir may not have moved mountains, but he definitely made a career of motivating people to do it for him".
Connections
He married Grace Lancaster on December 7, 1921; they adopted two nieces of Grace Byoir.