Early Life and Career
Ivy Lee was born near Cedartown, Georgia on July 16, 1877 as the son of a Methodist minister, James Wideman Lee, who founded an important Atlanta family. He studied at Emory College and then graduated from Princeton. He worked as a newspaper reporter and stringer. He was a journalist at the New York American, the New York Times, and the New York World. He got his first job in 1903 as a publicity manager for the Citizens' Union. He authored the book The Best Administration New York City Ever Had. He later took a job with the Democratic National Committee. Lee married Cornelia Bartlett Bigalow in 1901. They had three children: Alice Lee in 1902, James Wideman Lee II in 1906, and Ivy Lee, Jr. in 1909.
Together with George Parker, he established the United States' third public relations firm, Parker and Lee, in 1905. The new agency boasted of "Accuracy, Authenticity, and Interest." They made this partnership after working together in the Democratic Party headquarters handling publicity for Judge Alton Parker's unsuccessful presidential race against Theodore Roosevelt.
The Parker and Lee firm lasted less than four years, but the junior partner — Lee — was to become one of the most influential pioneers in public relations. He evolved his philosophy in 1906 into the Declaration of Principles, the first articulation of the concept that public relations practitioners have a public responsibility that extends beyond obligations to the client. In the same year, after the 1906 Atlantic City train wreck, Lee issued what is often considered to be the very first press release, convincing the company to openly disclose information to journalists, before they could hear information from elsewhere.
When Lee was hired full-time by the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1912, he was considered to be the first public relations person placed in an executive-level position. In fact, his archives reveal that he drafted one of the first job descriptions of a VP-level corporate public relations position.
In 1919 he founded the public relations counseling office Ivy Lee & Associates.
During World War I, Lee served as a publicity director, and later as Assistant to the Chairman of, the American Red Cross.
Through his sister Laura, Lee was an uncle to novelist William S. Burroughs.
Ivy Lee died of a brain tumor on November 9, 1934, at the age of 57 years.
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