PR in the 20th Century: The Rise of Agencies and Ethical Standards

Public relations as we know it today – strategic, structured, and guided by professional ethics – didn’t emerge overnight. It was built brick by brick over the 20th century, through the efforts of pioneering agencies, visionary founders, and professional bodies that fought to give the field both credibility and a conscience. From a small Boston office in 1900 to national PR societies in both the United States and India, the story of PR’s rise is also the story of how modern communication became a recognized profession.

The birth of the PR agency
How Hill & Knowlton set the standard
The rise of PR agencies in India
Evolution of PR ethics and professional standards
The PRSA and the formalization of ethics in America
The PRSI and ethical PR in the Indian context
Why these standards mattered – and still do

The birth of the PR agency

Founded in Boston in 1900, the Publicity Bureau is widely credited as the first professional PR agency. It was established by George V. S. Michaelis, Herbert Small, and Thomas O. Marvin – all former journalists – and focused on creating and distributing information on behalf of clients. PR scholar Scott Cutlip described this as an “arbitrary starting point” but emphasized its significance in the professionalization of PR.

At the time, large corporations were facing intense scrutiny. In the era of muckraking journalism, those same targets used public relations as a way to balance what was otherwise an entirely toxic public image. The Publicity Bureau stepped into this gap – and the modern PR industry was born.

Ivy Lee, sometimes called the father of PR, was among those connected with early agency work and was influential in establishing it as a professional practice. In 1906, Lee published a Declaration of Principles stating that PR work should be done openly, should be accurate, and should cover topics of public interest – marking a shift from secretive corporate communication toward a more transparent approach. He also pioneered the modern press release and what he called the “two-way street” philosophy: listening to the public, not just broadcasting at them.

How Hill & Knowlton set the standard

If the Publicity Bureau was PR’s starting pistol, Hill & Knowlton was its first great sprint. John Wiley Hill worked as a journalist for 18 years before moving into public relations in 1927, opening a firm in Cleveland, Ohio. Instead of working alone, as was the practice in those days, Hill hired and trained other agents to work in his style – effectively becoming the founder of the modern-day PR consultancy model.

In 1933, he brought in Donald Knowlton – formerly the PR director of a client bank that had closed during the Great Depression – and Hill & Knowlton was formally born. In 1934, Hill moved the company headquarters to New York to counsel the American Iron and Steel Institute, with clients that eventually included trade associations and major corporations such as Procter & Gamble, Texaco, and Gillette.

During the 1950s, Hill & Knowlton became the first American agency to build a European network, pioneering the multinational PR firm model that is now standard across the globe. Hill’s philosophy emphasized public relations as proactive “counsel,” prioritizing integrity, truthfulness, and the presentation of verifiable facts to manage corporate reputations. It was a vision of PR as a strategic management discipline, not merely a press release machine.

Not everything Hill & Knowlton did was uncontroversial. The firm’s 1950s campaign on behalf of the tobacco industry, paying scientists to publicly counter evidence linking smoking to lung cancer, later became one of the most criticized episodes in PR history. It stands as an early and stark lesson in the ethical limits of advocacy – a debate that would eventually force the entire profession to formalize its ethical standards.

The rise of PR agencies in India

While the American PR industry was expanding rapidly through the mid-20th century, India was charting its own course. Public relations in India began in the 1950s, driven by a post-independence economy that was growing, diversifying, and increasingly media-hungry. Indian businesses needed help navigating communication in a newly democratic, multilingual society – and early PR practitioners stepped in to fill that role.

Though there were several individuals and small firms that offered PR-related services before this period, they operated with a limited scope focused mainly on media relations. It was only natural that entrepreneurs who began these services came from journalism backgrounds, seen as a natural hunting ground for the nascent PR industry. The profession was informal, loosely defined, and in need of structure.

India’s unique diversity – dozens of regional languages, distinct cultural markets, and a growing vernacular press – made public relations especially complex. Agencies had to think beyond a single message to a single audience. They helped businesses navigate multilingual media landscapes and build relationships with journalists and editors across different regions. This complexity pushed Indian PR practitioners to develop a more nuanced, audience-specific approach from the very beginning.

Evolution of PR ethics and professional standards

The PRSA and the formalization of ethics in America

The Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) was founded in 1947 by combining the American Council on Public Relations and the National Association of Public Relations Councils. It represented a turning point: PR was no longer just a business service; it was a recognized profession with its own governing body, standards, and responsibilities.

PRSA adopted its first code of ethics in 1950, which was then rewritten in 1954 using action-based principle statements to define ethical conduct more clearly. When the code was revised again in 1959, enforcement language was added, and bylaw revisions established regional boards to adjudicate ethical violations.

The PRSA Code of Ethics outlines core values including honesty, advocacy, expertise, independence, loyalty, and fairness – and requires members to act in the public interest, not merely in the interest of their clients. The current PRSA code, last updated in 2000, expects members to protect the free flow of accurate information, foster informed decision-making, and strengthen public trust in the profession.

The code’s evolution also mirrors the industry’s growth: the 1960s revisions addressed conflicts of interest and the growing problem of “front groups” – organizations created by PR firms to appear independent while actually advancing client interests. Each revision was a response to real-world abuses, pushing the profession to hold itself to a higher standard.

The PRSI and ethical PR in the Indian context

The Public Relations Society of India (PRSI) began operating in 1958 as an informal body of PR professionals, before being formally registered in 1966 under the Societies Act. Kali H. Mody, considered one of the pioneer stalwarts of Indian PR, served as the founding president of the society from 1966 to 1969.

PRSI adopted the International Code of Ethics for Public Relations at its first National Conference in New Delhi in 1968, bringing India’s PR profession in line with global standards. The code was anchored in principles drawn from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and emphasized transparent communication, respect for public interest, and the ethical responsibilities practitioners hold not just to clients, but to society at large.

PRSI was established to promote the recognition of public relations as a profession and to formulate and interpret to the public the objectives and potentialities of public relations as a strategic management function. Today, the society has chapters spanning over 22 cities across the country, conducting seminars, workshops, and training programmes that continue to shape professional standards in Indian PR.

Why these standards mattered – and still do

The rise of PR ethics wasn’t just about optics. It was a response to genuine abuses – the tobacco industry campaigns, the use of “front groups,” the blurring of the line between information and propaganda. Without formal codes, the profession risked being defined by its worst practitioners rather than its best.

Both the PRSA and PRSI recognized that public trust is not just a PR goal – it is the foundation on which effective communication rests. A practitioner who misleads the public may win a short-term battle for a client, but erodes the credibility that makes PR work in the first place. Research has found that while enforcement of these codes was often weak throughout history, the frameworks themselves set a direction and vocabulary for the profession to aspire to.

The agency model – systematic, scalable, and multi-client – gave PR its commercial structure. The ethics codes gave it its professional soul. Together, they transformed PR from a loose collection of press agents and publicity hacks into a recognized discipline that sits at the table in boardrooms, government ministries, and newsrooms worldwide.

What do you think? As PR agencies grew more powerful through the 20th century, was it inevitable that ethical abuses like the tobacco industry campaigns would occur – or could stronger early standards have prevented them? And in a world of social media and instant information, do professional codes of ethics like those of the PRSA and PRSI still carry the weight they were designed to?

References

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Table of Contents

The birth of the PR agency 🔗

How Hill & Knowlton set the standard 🔗

The rise of PR agencies in India 🔗

Evolution of PR ethics and professional standards 🔗

The PRSA and the formalization of ethics in America 🔗

The PRSI and ethical PR in the Indian context 🔗

Why these standards mattered – and still do 🔗