WI: Edward Bernays' mother suffers a miscarriage. How is the world better?

Bernays was one hell of a guy. Sadly, they'd probably find other people to do the job he would've done. Take the tobacco industry, for instance. Bernays is credited with being one of the main figures behind making smoking popular amongst women with his "torches of freedom" concept, linking it to feminism and women's liberation as well as independence from the morals of their parents and from male society (this same marketing to women has been used by the tobacco industry ever since to market to women, including in countries where much like early 20th century America, women's smoking is regarded as vulgar and uncouth). He also helped market Lucky Strike cigarettes in particular to women through his publicity efforts. But after all, Bernays didn't create the term "torches of freedom" nor the implications behind it, a psychiatrist named A.A. Brill did. And it wasn't like "independent women" (i.e. flappers) weren't already smoking in larger numbers throughout the 1920s. Maybe without Bernays, female smoking would remain lower for longer?

That's simply one of Bernays' numerous PR efforts, and I believe with many of other cases, his clients could've obtained similar results with other men. But the thing is, it would take longer for the science and art of public relations to come into vogue, changing the 20th century corporate and cultural landscape immensely. Among these changes include perhaps less use of paper cups, bacon and eggs being less popular, Ivory soap not being as popular of a brand, and the list goes on. There's also a curious link to water fluoridation (not saying I agree with the anti-fluoridation movement and especially not the bizarre conspiracies associated with it), where Bernays was involved promoting the benefits of fluoridation--without a man like him, would there be stronger and more lasting opposition against fluoridation in the US? For his more serious campaigns like the aforementioned tobacco efforts or his work with the United Fruit Company against President Jacobo Arbenz of Guatemala, I sadly think similar results would have come about with or without him.

Also, it's fortunate that Bernays wrote about his methods and how we have so much material to document his work. If there were multiple people who independently did the work of Bernays, it's possible the science of PR and advertising would be less understood.
 
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