Click through the following pages to see a brief description of some of Edward Bernays' most memorable campaigns.

Bernays reviewed and published a submitted work praising the play Damaged Goods by Eugene Brieux. The play was the story of a young man with syphilis who marries, his wife later giving birth to a child with the disease. It was a particularly bold and challenging piece at the time as social mores made it improper to talk about such issues, especially in public (Ewen, 1996).

Bernays soon learned that the play was to be produced in New York. He contacted the producer to offer his help. Other plays had been shut down by the Society for the Suppression of Vice with the backing of law enforcement officials, and the two met to discuss what could be done to avoid such problems with Damaged Goods (Ewen, 1996). Bernays came up with the idea of creating a Medical Review of Reviews Sociological Fund Committee whose sole goal would be to educate the public about sexually transmitted disease. Once formed, the Committee would help to back the play and paying members would be given a ticket to the show (Cutlip, 1994).

Armed with a plan, Bernays set out to solicit membership from only the most respectable members of New York’s upper class. This, he suspected, would keep the Society for the Suppression of Vice from attempting to shut down the play (Ewen, 1996). He was right; the play opened in Spring of 1913 to a packed house of society’s most elite members (Cutlip, 1994). The show garnered so much attention that it eventually went on tour and was later made into a film (Ewen, 1996).

Following this success, Bernays knew he had found a calling. He quit both journalism and the Medical Review of Reviews in favor of a job in publicity (Ewen, 1996).

_{*above image of Eugene Brieux from  lelouptheatre.free.fr/docdicob/html}