Bruce Fairchild Barton
Overview
 
Bruce Fairchild Barton (August 5, 1886 – July 5, 1967) was an American author, advertising executive, and politician. He served in the U.S. Congress from 1937 to 1940 as a Republican from New York.
Born in Robbins, Tennessee
Robbins, Tennessee
Robbins is an unincorporated community and census-designated place in Scott County, Tennessee. As of the 2010 census, its population is 287.-Notable people:...

 in 1886, Barton was the son of a Congregational clergyman and grew up in various places throughout the U.S., including the Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

 area. He graduated from Amherst College
Amherst College
Amherst College is a private liberal arts college located in Amherst, Massachusetts, United States. Amherst is an exclusively undergraduate four-year institution and enrolled 1,744 students in the fall of 2009...

 in 1907. He worked as a publicist and magazine editor before co-founding the Barton, Durstine & Osborn (BDO) advertising agency
Advertising agency
An advertising agency or ad agency is a service business dedicated to creating, planning and handling advertising for its clients. An ad agency is independent from the client and provides an outside point of view to the effort of selling the client's products or services...

 in 1919.
Quotations

A man may be down, but he is never out.

A slogan Barton wrote for the Salvation Army|Salvation Army

Give advertising time. That is the thing that it needs most. The advertising agency is the most precious infant among the professions. Is it fair to expect perfection in a profession that counts only a single generation to its credit? We are learning. I see no reason why advertising agencies, too, should not outlive their founders and the successors of their founders, growing wiser with each generation and gathering a priceless possession of recorded experience.

BBDO Newsletter (1966)

I had never thought of advertising as a life work, though I had on the side, written some very successful copy.

As quoted in The Mirror Makers: A History of American Advertising and Its Creators (1984) by Steven Fox

To every man of vision the clear Voice speaks; there is no great leadership where there is not a mystic. Nothing splendid has ever been achieved except by those who dared believe that something inside themselves was superior to circumstance. To choose the sure thing is treason to the soul.

On Jesus, in Ch. 1 : The Executive

It is said that great leaders are born, not made. The saying is true to this degree, that no man can persuade people to do what he wants them to do, unless he genuinely likes people, and believes that what he wants them to do is to their own advantage.

Ch. 4 : His Method

Surely no one will consider us lacking in reverence if we say that every one of the "principles of modern salesmanship" on which business men so much pride themselves, are brilliantly exemplified in Jesus' talk and work.

Ch. 4 : His Method

Much brass has been sounded and many cymbals tinkled in the name of advertising; but the advertisements which persuade people to act are written by men who have an abiding respect for the intelligence of their readers, and a deep sincerity regarding the merits of the goods they have to sell.

Ch. 5 : His Advertisements

Generalities would have been soon forgotten. But the story that had its roots in everyday human existence and need, lives and will live forever. It condensed the philosophy of Christianity into half a dozen unforgettable paragraphs. The Parable of the Good Samaritan|parable of the Good Samaritan is the greatest advertisement of all times.

Ch. 5 : His Advertisements

 
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