How We Advertised America: The First Telling of the Amazing Story of the Committee on Public Information That Carried the Gospel of Americanism to Every Corner of the Globe

by George Creel

Excerpt from How We Advertised America: The First Telling of the Amazing Story of the Committee on Public Information That Carried the Gospel of Americanism to Every Corner of the Globe The Committee on Public Information was wiped out of existence on June 30, 1919, by action of Congress. The work of the Committee had been discontinued months before, and only an orderly liquidation was in progress. It was this liquidation that Congress desired to interrupt and confuse. No one was left with power to rent a building, employ a clerk, transfer a bank balance, or to collect a dollar. This condition of chaos endured for weeks - for it was not until August 21st that the President found power to turn the records of the Committee over to the Council of National Defense - and it is only to-day that a final accounting to the people is able to be made.
At the time of the Committee's annihilation a complete report of its activities was on the presses in the Government Printing Office. This was included in the general slaughter, for not only was it the purpose of Congress to prevent any final audit, but also to keep the Committee from making a statement of achievement for the information of the public.
It was to defeat this purpose that this book has been written. It is not a compilation of incident and opinion, but a record and a chronicle. I have followed through the work of the organization from beginning to end, division by division, both as a matter of duty and as a partial discharge of my debt of gratitude to the men and women who worked with me.

Genres: History, World War I

519 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1920

About the author

1876-1953

Reviews

[Brett · Rating 3 out of 5]

This document got onto my radar through reading Chomsky, who had this to say about George Creel and the Committee on Public Information: "The population was extremely pacifistic and saw no reason to become involved in a European war. The Wilson administration was actually committed to war and had to do something about it. They established a government propaganda commission, called the Creel Commission, which succeeded, within six months, in turning a pacifist population into a hysterical, war-mongering population which wanted to destroy everything German, tear the Germans limb from limb, go to war and save the world. That was a major achievement."

So I wanted to go back to the source and read for myself what George Creel, the head of the Committee on Public Information, had to say for himself and his efforts. As you might guess, Creel frames things somewhat differently than Chomsky in this report on the activities of the commission, published shortly after the commission was dissolved in light of the end of the first world war.

The Committee, which I knew essentially nothing about, does appear to have been a very vigorous source of propaganda during its existence. It actively worked with the press, though Creel is at very great pains to deny any de jure censorship by the committee. They are an early government organ to use networks like UPI or the AP to blast their own accounts of the war to both domestic and foreign press, make and distribute propaganda films, and sponsor a massive series of speakers (the "Four Minute Men") to address the public in towns across America.

Creel is a clearly a political animal and a good deal of the book is devoted to pushing back on his political adversaries, especially a handful of Senators who he cannot help but display his contempt towards. He expends a lot of energy rehashing disputes about specific occurrences, and also about accounting for funding for the project and justifying how his budget was spent.

On its own terms, the book is frankly pretty boring, but reading it with Chomsky's view as an early modern propaganda machine does make it an interesting meta-exercise. We live our lives so completely awash in PR these days that it almost seems quaint to imagine that this kind of program could substantially move public opinion, but I don't doubt that at the time it was able to have an impact on the public's willingness to tolerate US entry into the war.

It's an interesting historical document for those reasons, though most readers can just spot check it to get the gist.

[AskHistorians]

A frank and enthusiastic memoir of the American Committee for Public Information's propaganda operations during the Great War as presented by the man who ran the show. Modern readers should welcome the opportunity to read about propaganda, from the perspective of a delighted propagandist, as written in a pre-Goebbels age. This is the narrative version, anyway; those looking for a massive collection of data should instead consult the lengthy post-war report Creel prepared for his superiors (1919)

[Chanelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

An incredible look at the PR and propaganda machine that was the CPI.

[Richard Kearney]

Available online at http://books.google.com/books?id=ltdm...