Promoting Monopoly

Karen Miller Russell (Ph.D., University of Wisconsin-Madison) is Jim Kennedy Professor of New Media and Josiah Meigs Distinguished Teaching Professor at the University of Georgia. She is the author of The Voice of Business: Hill & Knowlton and Postwar Public Relations.

“In this deeply researched book, Karen Miller Russell advances the history of public relations and corporate communication in the United States through detailed analysis of AT&T/Bell’s launch, promotion and sustenance of telephony in a highly readable, scholarly manner. It is a major addition to the canon of communications history.”—Tom Watson, Founder, International History of Public Relations Conference

• List of Illustrations – Preface – Acknowledgements – "A Necessary Adjunct to Nearly All Commercial Enterprises": The Rise of Corporate Publicity in the United States – "To Undertake Something in the Missionary Line": William A. Hovey and Corporate Publicity at American Bell, 1876–1903 – "A Largely Random Basis": AT&T, Competition, and the Publicity Bureau, 1903–1907 – "One Policy, One System, Universal Service": Educating the Public, 1908–1913 – "We Are Really Governed by Publicity": Institutionalizing Public Relations, 1913–1926 – "To Serve Well We Must Earn Well": AT&T’s Financial Policy and the Great Depression, 1927–1934 – "All Business in a Democratic Country … Exists by Public Approval": The FCC Investigation, 1935–1941 – Conclusion "The Number One Public Relations Post in Industry": AT&T in U.S. Public Relations History – Index.