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The Man Everybody Knew: Bruce Barton and the Making of Modern America. By Richard M. Fried. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2005. xv + 286 pp. Index, notes, photographs. Cloth, $27.50. ISBN: 1-566-63663-9.
Reviewed by Susan V. Spellman
Had Bruce Barton followed in his father's footsteps and ascended to the pulpit, we might speak of him today as popular religion's answer to the sound bite. Instead, Barton opted to follow other callings, most notably in advertising, statesmanship, and publishing. Those familiar with Barton through the work of Jackson Lears or Warren Susman know that he founded and directed Baten, Barton, Durstine & Osborn (BBDO), one of the twentieth century's most powerful advertising agencies. Others may recall Barton's Senate bid, quashed in part by Franklin D. Roosevelt's 1940 presidential campaign jab at "Martin, Barton, and Fish," the congressional trio that vigorously opposed FDR's New Deal policies. Barton first became a household name, however, with the 1925 publication of The Man Nobody Knows, his gamble to turn Jesus into a pitchman by marrying religion and business.
Despite all we know of Barton, a full-length survey of his life has not been written. Richard M. Fried offers an effective correction to this oversight with his straightforward biography of a figure whose work garnered greater public recognition and sales than Hemingway's or Fitzgerald's in their time. Fried paints a broader portrait of Barton as a man who...