Though he was born in Vienna, Austria in 1891 Edward L. Bernays was brought to the United States by his parents when he was just a year old. Nephew to psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud by marriage Freud’s brother-in-law while his mother was Freud’s sister), Bernay’s grew up in New York. He eventually attended Cornell University and earned a degree in agriculture at his parents insistence.
Through his father’s connections, he found work as an office clerk at the Produce Exchange, but soon tired of the job and quit. Shortly after, he came into contact with a college friend who offered him a job editing medical journals. This chance encounter quickly led to Bernay’s first foray into the field of public relations (Cutlip, 1994).