Photo of Ivy Ledbetter Lee (Courtesy of Harris & Ewing, PICRYL)
Ivy Ledbetter Lee: The Father of Modern Public Relations
Ivy Ledbetter Lee was one of the first public relations practitioners and is often credited with being the father of modern public relations (Meade, 2020). He set up ways of thinking in public relations that are mostly still used today, and changed the way that public relations largely worked. He started the shift from companies hiding and covering up their mistakes to taking ownership for them (Zoch et al., 2014).
Beginnings
Ivy Lee graduated from Princeton with an A.B. in literature then started out as a journalist for the New York World, the Journal, and the New York Times. Later, he moved onto running the press for the Democratic National Committee for Alton B. Parker’s campaign against Theodore Roosevelt (EPR Editorial Team, 2026). After moving away from the journalism side of things he started one of the first public relations agencies with George Parker, where they took on their first major client; the Pennsylvania Railroad (Department of Communication Studies, 2021).
Declaration of Principles
During the beginning of Lee’s time doing public relations work for the Pennsylvania railroad, he was representing some miners that went on a coal strike. During this strike, Lee drafted up and published a declaration of principles that he believed public relations professionals should follow. The major component of Lee’s declaration of principles was transparency, which he defined as “not operating in secret; accuracy; and truthfulness” (Zoch et al., 2014).
(Graphic courtesy of Slideegg)
Rockefeller
In 1914 the Rockefeller family was going through a public relations crisis following an incident at a mine they owned where 22 people died (Westervelt, 2020) . Lee took it on himself to help turn the Rockefeller family reputation around. At this time, Ivy Lee issued the first ever press release, which was highly controversial, where he gave the mine owners side of the story (Zoch et al., 2014). Lee spent the next part of his career focused on flipping the public image of the Rockefeller family by inviting the press into the Rockefellers lives and allowing them to see the good, such as John D. Rockefeller donating money, hanging out with his grandchildren, and more (Meade, 2020). By the time of Rockefeller’s death, he was remembered as a “kindly philanthropist, a hard working industrialist, and a true blue American” (Westervelt, 2020).
Impact
Ivy Lee’s standard of being transparent, started the shift that allowed public relations as a profession to become more ethical and respected. He wrote the first form of a code of ethics for public relations, and the basis of his code is still used today. Also, the way he handled the Rockefeller mine crisis became the standard that public relation agencies follow today when faced with a crisis (EPR Editorial Team, 2026). His creation of the press release is also a core foundation of public relations, and mainly how agencies today reach out and give the press information.
Sources:
EPR Editorial Team. (2026, June 29). Everything-PR. Everything-PR News. https://everything-pr.com/ivy-lee-father-of-modern-press-relations
Department of Communication Studies. (2021). The American Narrative. Foundations of Public Relations: Canadian Edition; Pressbooks. https://pressbooks.atlanticoer-relatlantique.ca/publicrelations/chapter/the-american-narrative/
Meade, J. (2020, August 24). Father of PR, Ivy Lee, Pioneered Tactics We Use Today. Prnews. https://www.prnewsonline.com/ivy-lee-crisis-history/
S3, Ep1 | The Father of Public Relations. (n.d.). Drillednews.Com. Retrieved September 29, 2026, from https://drilled.media/podcasts/drilled/3/drilleds03-e01
Zoch, L. M., Supa, D. W., & VanTuyll, D. R. (2014). The portrayal of public relations in the era of Ivy Lee through the lens of the New York Times. Public Relations Review, 40(4), 723–732. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0363811114000307
Westervelt, A. (Executive Producer). (2020, January 21). The Father of Public Relations, (Season 3, episode 1). [Audio podcast]. In Drilled. Production company. https://drilled.media/podcasts/drilled/3/drilleds03-e01
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