The Man Everybody Knew: Bruce Barton And the Making of Modern America - Rilegato

Everyone knew him then: Bruce Barton was a cultural icon of the mid-twentieth century - a pioneering advertising man, prolific writer, friend of presidents, and author of one of the most popular books ever. But surprisingly few people know of Bruce Barton today: he is the most celebrated twentieth-century American without a biography.
Richard M. Fried's new study of Barton captures the full dimensions of his varied and fascinating life and the culture of his times. More than a popularizer of the entrepreneurial Jesus, he wrote novels, magazine articles, interviews with the mighty, pithy editorials of uplift. He edited a weekly magazine that anticipated the format of Life. Most famously, he co-founded the advertising agency that became Batten, Barton, Durstine & Osborn and grew to symbolize "Madison Avenue." He made GM and GE household initials.
The son of a minister, Barton in his own religious writings - especially The Man Nobody Knows - epitomized modernist religious thought in the twenties. As a political spin merchant, he advanced the careers of Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover; his agency later scripted campaigns for Republicans, notably Dwight Eisenhower. Barton himself was twice elected to Congress, ran for the U.S. Senate in 1940, and that year lent his name to FDR's famous mocking litany, "Martin, Barton, and Fish."