Abstract

"Public Relations as Economic Education: Teaching Workers the Fallacy of the Union"

Angus McLeod, University of Pennsylvania (wamcleod@upenn.edu)

The post-depression years of the New Deal brought corporate reputations to new lows as Americans contemplated and endorsed serious alterations to the U.S. economic system. Newly-elected political leaders created new agencies which issued new regulations to rein in corporate power. The business community, however, had a plan to respond. From the 1930s through the 1980s, companies combatted labor union educational efforts with their own campaign to teach workers the right economics, or, as one company-financed textbook put it, “How you really earn your living.” This paper tells that story and how companies pushed economic education through their newly powerful public relations departments.
According to historian Elizabeth Fones-Wolf, beginning in the 1940s and running into the 1980s corporations and business associations worked “to restore their influence over education as part of their broader campaign to create an economic and political climate favorable to business.” In shaping workers’ economic education, business leaders hoped to develop a more amenable generation of American voters and employees. General Electric and its dynamic head of human relations, Lemuel Boulware, created a standout economic education program in the 1940s and 1950s that targeted workers, spouses, clergy, community leaders, teachers, and schoolchildren. Boulware’s background was in advertising and his programs reflected his view that the free enterprise system needed to be sold. While the program eschewed attempts to “dogmatise,” its conception of “sound economic theory” was inherently pro-business and anti-union.
Drawing on evidence from Boulware at GE, the US Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturing, DuPont, and Sun Oil, this paper will trace the evolution of economic education for workers that conservative businesses pushed out through their public relations, community relations, and human relations departments. It will also address the implications of this campaign for worker solidarity and labor organizing.