The rise of the railroad in Virginia: A historical analysis of the emergence of corporate public relations in the United States

Introduction

This article explores the emergence of corporate public relations in the United States by analyzing the rise of the railroad industry in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Although not typically detailed in public relations railroad histories (Hiebert, 1966; Olasky, 1987; Pearson, 1990; Piasecki, 2000; St John, 2006), the case of Virginia’s turn-of-the-century railroads enriches our understanding of the field’s origins in several ways. First, it confirms the vulnerability of traditional approaches to public relations history by showing that some early public relations practices did not conform to the norms of press agentry/publicity (Grunig and Hunt, 1984). Next, it verifies that public relations should not be characterized narrowly as a field with shifty origins that has evolved over time into a more ethical practice. Finally, it shows that early corporate public relations practices were motivated by more than the desires of big business to combat negative press or respond to activists (Coombs and Holladay, 2012); rather, some practitioners desired to contribute to a more productive and unified society. The case of Virginia’s railroad development is marked by complexities that illuminate the interdependent relationship between business and society in ways that encouraged businesses to consider the public good. Ultimately, an analysis of Virginia’s early railroads reveals nascent public relations practices that aimed to build strong community relations and demonstrate corporate responsibility (Heath and Ni, 2010) in an effort to contribute to the development of a more fully functioning society (Heath, 2006).

Virginia’s 19th-century railroads emerged within an ideologically, socially and economically fractured state, divided over the related issues of the railroad and the long-standing institution of chattel slavery. While some citizens resisted railroad development in order to protect the pro-slavery interests of the planter-class aristocracy based in Eastern Virginia, others supported railroad development as a means to strengthen Western Virginia, where slavery was comparatively less popular and where some citizens even favored emancipation. Yet others supported railroad development as a way to unite the entire state in economic prosperity, regardless of the slavery question. Dramatically different visions of which way of life was best for Virginians competed in the marketplace of ideas for dominance. This article explores the role public relations played in the struggle to develop and expand railroads into the Western region of the state and in doing so contributes an untold story to public relations history.

The fully functioning society theory (FFST) of public relations (Heath, 2006) serves as a theoretical framework for my historical analysis due to its emphasis on the relationship between organizations and the societal implications of public relations practice. Using FFST as a theoretical guide to my historical analysis of the rise of Virginia’s railroads and the role played by public relations extends the applicability of FFST into the realm of historical inquiry and reveals an alternative conceptualization of the field’s origins that complicates traditional, taken-for-granted assumptions.

My historical analysis focuses on archival materials published primarly between 1835 and 1905—a period of controversial activity in Virginia’s railroad development and expansion. I analyzed publications by Virginia railroad companies and articles in Virginia community newspapers. While railroad publications depicted how these companies sought to rhetorically construct their image and role in society and how they justified their expansion needs, newspaper coverage exposed how the debate over railroad expansion unfolded in the public sphere. Together, this data set provides a unique yet substantive rendering of the railroad’s rise in Virginia and the public relations efforts that supported its westward expansion. This article presents just one of many possible interpretations of Virginia’s railroad public relations history. In doing so, it demonstrates that the railroad became much more than a new mode of transportation – it was a symbol of society’s enlightened progress, a means to unify a conflicted citizenry, and a demonstration of the Commonwealth’s economic and political fortitude.

After providing a brief overview of railroad public relations history in the United States, including contributions from Virginia’s railroads, I will explain FFST as a theoretical framework. A description of the historical context surrounding turn-of-the-century railroad development in Virginia follows. This sets the stage for my historical analysis of the archival documents and the corporate public relations efforts that accompanied westward railroad expansion in the Commonwealth. The historical analysis shows that FFST is applicable in historical inquiry and illuminates how early corporate organizations used public relations to help society become a better place. Finally, the conclusion highlights the lessons that can be gleaned from this hitherto untold chapter in public relations history and shows how Virginia’s railroad public relations history draws attention to the varied and complex nature of the field’s development without venerating or denigrating its origins.

Railroads and public relations history

The emergence of corporate public relations in the United States is traditionally associated with the development of America’s railroads and the communicative activities they used to gain public support in the 19th and 20th centuries (Cutlip, 1995; Gower, 2008; Hiebert, 1966; Lamme and Russell, 2010; Meisenbach and McMillan, 2006; Olasky, 1987; Tedlow, 1979). The railroad industry was a forerunner of corporate public relations for a number of reasons. Railroads of the 19th century were among the first business organizations to have multiple operations, several geographically dispersed locations, and tremendous influence over the lives of employees, customers, and the communities where they operated. According to public relations pioneer Ivy Lee (1915), who provided counsel to the Pennsylvania Railroad, one in 12 men worked in the railroad industry at the turn of the century. During this period, the railroad infiltrated almost every aspect of the economy, affecting the lives of nearly all Americans in ways no other business institution had done previously (Tedlow, 1979). Paradoxically, while the wealth and power of the burgeoning railroad industry were undeniable, the existence of what Eller (1982) called ‘the iron horse’ (p. 65) was vulnerable to several factors, especially anti-railroad sentiment.

In his seminal study of 19th-century railroad executives, Cochran (1965) explained how these business leaders were often characterized: ‘Historians and journalists have called them “robber barons” and have described them, sometimes accurately, as buyers of legislatures, makers of presidents, controllers of education, debasers of religion, engrossers of the public domain, and swindlers of investors’ (p. 2). Anti-railroad sentiment paralleled the rise of public opinion to unprecedented levels of importance at the turn of the century. As Lee (1915) explained, ‘The people now rule. We have substituted for the divine right of kings, the divine right of the multitude. The crowd is enthroned’ (p. 8). Railroad executives and supporters knew that this new transportation innovation was unlikely to survive if local communities could not be convinced of its benefits, if investors were not persuaded to fund both railroad construction and the development of adjacent land, and if railroad operations were prevented from expanding into new markets due to lack of funding, government regulation, or public opposition. Each of these prerequisites for railroad business success had one thing in common: the need for effective, persuasive, and strategic communication. While state governments were willing to grant charters and help fund rail construction, they were far less willing to fund railroad public relations efforts (Eller, 1982). Thus, the railroad industry was compelled to engage in public relations activities for survival.

Railroad companies supplied information to journalists, hosted celebrations, conducted surveys, developed and distributed handbills and guidebooks, published magazines, and sponsored magazine and newspaper articles. Executives delivered speeches, wrote letters to leading citizens, communicated with politicians, and courted other influencers. Railroad companies also helped pioneer business-to-business public relations practices. Executives gave presentations to potential investors in the United States and traveled abroad to Europe to secure financial backing (Striplin, 1997). Railroad communicators also developed materials designed to persuade allied businesses such as coalmines, farming enterprises, and canneries to open along rail lines (Norfolk and Western Railway Co., 1905). Early railroad public relations practitioners implemented a variety of strategies and tactics that are still in use today.

During the early days of the railroad, the scope, function, and organizational prestige of public relations varied considerably. Executives at the highest level in the company sometimes led public relations activities. For example, in 1889, Norfolk and Western President Frederick J. Kimball thought he should personally be responsible for building relationships with newspaper editors (Cochran, 1965). In other instances, public relations was not highly regarded nor proactively practiced: as the counsel to the St. Louis–San Francisco Railway explained, ‘The handling of public relations was, in many cases, delegated to an advertising manager or a glorified clerk whose only direct contact with management was on those occasions when somebody wanted a story kept out of the papers’ (Parry, 1939: 155).

To more directly influence public opinion, some railroad men purchased controlling interests in newspapers or bought them outright (Cochran, 1965; Tedlow, 1979). For example, Virginia’s William Mahone – a railroad man turned Confederate army general during the Civil War and president of Virginia’s Atlantic, Mississippi, and Ohio railroad after the war – recognized the relationship between the newspaper, public opinion, and railroad success. Woodward (1951) noted, ‘Finding control of public opinion and political power essential to his large-scale railroad plans, Mahone bought control of the Richmond Whig, and took a leading part in organizing the Conservative party’ (p. 97), although his ownership stake in the Whig, and perhaps other newspapers, was not publicly disclosed (Pearson, 1917).

The unsettled nature of the nascent public relations field meant that early railroad public relations efforts sometimes included ethically questionable practices to ‘manufacture public opinion’ (Lamme and Russell, 2010: 332) and too often with little regard for public well-being or for the truth. Yet there is also evidence that early railroad public relations practices had developed beyond the types of manipulative activities that have negatively stereotyped the field. For example, Gower (2008) explained that railroad companies had moved away from ‘using secret press agents to spread “tainted news”’ (p. 312) and were embracing transparent and sophisticated communication practices. Early railroad public relations practitioners were in many ways discourse technologists (Leitch and Motion, 2010) seeking ‘to achieve change by transforming discourse, which involves changing established ways of thinking about particular objects, concepts, and strategies’ (p. 103).

As discourse technologists, early public relations practitioners constructed their own rhetoric of legitimation (Pearson, 1990) designed to justify support for the railroad. For example, The Norfolk & Western Railway Co. Industrial Shippers and Buyers Official Guide (1905) was a public relations tool – over-sized, cloth-bound, full of photographs, artist renderings, and lengthy passages – that extolled the virtues of the Virginia-based railroad’s societal and economic benefits:

The Norfolk and Western Railway has materially assisted in the building of new cities, and this progressive policy continues. It has put new life into old towns and villages. It has opened up thousands of miles of territory, the wealth of which runs into many millions of dollars, and it has changed the economic and social conditions of a substantial portion of the south. (Norfolk and Western Railway Company, 1905: 7)

This passage is an example of how Virginia’s railroad public relations pioneers rhetorically constructed the railroad as a literal and metaphorical vehicle to a more fully functioning society – a commonwealth characterized by financial prosperity, economic opportunity, population growth, and exalted status in the southern states and in the nation as a whole.

Fully functioning society theory: A theoretical framework for analyzing public relations history

Several scholars have employed FFST to address contemporary issues in public relations (Boyd and Waymer, 2011; Taylor, 2011; Waymer et al., 2012; Yang et al., 2016). By using FFST as a theoretical framework in my historical analysis of the public relations efforts that supported the development and expansion of Virginia’s pioneer railroads, I show how the theory can be applied to the realm of historical inquiry.

FFST consists of eight principles:

1. Managerial efforts to transform uncertainty into order;

2. Corporate responsibility;

3. Power resource management;

4. Community as conflicting and conjoined interests and expectations;

5. Relationship as symmetry: communitas versus corporatas;

6. Organizational communication;

7. Responsible advocacy; and

8. Narrative and other forms of rhetoric leading to enlightened choice. (Heath, 2006)

The philosophical origins of the rhetorical tradition inform FFST. Rhetoric emphasizes the nature of the relationship between language, meaning, and action, intervening in social relations when decisions must be made. A rhetorical approach to analyzing an organizational discourse such as corporate public relations is useful because it ‘helps to explain the ways in which organizations attempt to achieve specific political or economic goals, or build relationships with their stakeholders’ (Ihlen, 2010: 59). Rhetorical approaches are also beneficial because they treat advocacy as ‘a necessary part of the process of co-creating meaning’ (Heath, 2001: 32).

Although public relations activities often aim to privilege some meanings over others, rhetorical approaches to public relations generally accept that the communicative processes constituting the discursive relationships between business organizations and their publics should be dialogic (Pearson, 1989) because businesses ultimately exist at the pleasure of society and remain subject to its norms and values (Daugherty, 2001). Consequently, the views of multiple stakeholders must be respected as an important part of the collective meaning-making process in any instance of appropriate corporate public relations practice. Corporate goals such as the pursuit of profit must therefore be tempered by the needs and opinions of an organization’s publics. The essence of this balancing act is captured in FFST. As Heath (2006) wrote,

Public relations is one of the many instances of social influence by which entities (corporate and individual) vie to cocreate shared social meaning, negotiate relationships, influence and yield to influence, create and resolve conflict, distribute resources, manage power resources, exert and yield to control, manage risks, shape and respond to preferences, work to resolve uncertainty, foster trust, engage in support and opposition, distribute rewards and costs, foster interdependency, and make enlightened choices. (p. 98)

As a theoretical framework for public relations historical inquiry, FFST is consistent with approaches that are more complex than the traditional four-model framework, which includes press agentry/publicity, public information, two-way asymmetrical, and two-way symmetrical (Grunig and Hunt, 1984). FFST fits within the tradition of non-linear (Holtzhausen, 2012; Lamme and Russell, 2010), postmodern (Holtzhausen, 2012), and race-focused (Edwards, 2015) approaches to public relations history. Each of these approaches acknowledges the field’s ‘role in broader historical contexts’ (L’Etang, 2008: 319), such as political, economic, social, diplomatic, and international arenas (Holtzhausen, 2012; L’Etang, 1996, 2008; McKie and Xifra, 2014). They also emphasize the varied nature of public relations’ emergence.

Historical analysis

While my historical analysis only highlights two of the eight FFST principles, a more robust FFST analysis could use each of the FFST principles to analyze Virginia’s railroad public relations history. For example, securing the financial and social capital necessary to expand the railroad westward was a contest in power resource management within a community characterized by conflicting and conjoined interests and expectations. As railroad expansion changed both the environmental landscape of Southwestern Virginia and the way of life for many of its rural residents, attempts to achieve relationship symmetry by framing railroads as communitas versus corporatas were important to railroad advocates. The ways in which railroad organizational communication processes employed strategies of identification (Cheney, 1983) to motivate employees and the public are also relevant along with railroad pioneers’ attempts to engage in responsible advocacy through persuasive narratives that rhetorically constructed the railroad as an effect of enlightened choice. Exploring these uses of FFST would be productive; however, space does not allow for it here as the purpose of this article is to present an alternative to traditional narratives of public relations history. FFST is merely the theoretical lens that informs my argument that public relations’ positive contributions to society did not begin in the 20th century, but actually existed earlier at a time when other theorists argue that press agentry was the primary mode of practice. My historical analysis therefore concentrates on the two FFST principles most salient to this article’s focus.

The first two FFST principles – managerial efforts to transform uncertainty into order and corporate responsibility – guide my analysis for several reasons. While celebrations may seem mundane, as one of the oldest and most common public relations tools, they held special societal significance within the context of Virginia’s early railroads. Turn-of-the-century Virginia was a society fraught with anxieties over the railroad, slavery, and the state’s political standing in the nation. These anxieties positioned railroad celebrations to function as managerial efforts to transform uncertainty into order. Not only did the celebrations build support for the railroad by publicizing it, but they also served as an attempt to unify a fragmented and fragile Commonwealth by creating a sense of community, stability, and progress around the railroad. The second principle, corporate responsibility, is a subject of enduring public, business, and scholarly interest. While the ‘public be damned’ perception of big businesses dominated the Industrial Revolution era (Bowen, 2007; Marchand, 1998), Virginia’s railroad history paints a different picture of the relationship between business and society – one in which railroad companies sought to balance self-interest with responsibility to the public. Uniting these two FFST principles to facilitate my historical analysis encourages us to rethink how we typically think of traditional public relations tools such as celebrations. It also urges us to reconsider how the relationship between business and society has typically been characterized in public relations history, and it facilitates a more nuanced understanding of the field’s emergence in corporate contexts.

Many historical analyses proceed via chronological organization; however, my analysis has more in common with non-linear approaches that embrace a variety of complexities often involved in historical interpretation (Holtzhausen, 2012; Lamme and Russell, 2010; Wehmeier, 2015). Thus, in this article, archival materials are not always presented in the order in which the events happened. They are instead organized around specific themes indicative of the particular historical moment under discussion.

Virginia railroad company publications as well as community newspaper railroad coverage published primarily between 1835 and 1905 - a period of controversial railroad development and expansion – constitute the materials for my analysis. A total of 20 railroad publications, including guidebooks, reference books, engineer reports, and company histories collected from the Virginia Tech Railroad History Archives, depicted how railroad businesses sought to rhetorically construct their image, role in society, and justification for expansion.

Approximately 200 newspaper issues, primarily from nine Virginia community newspapers available through the Library of Virginia Newspaper Project, were also reviewed. The newspapers include the Richmond Enquirer, Richmond Whig, Richmond Daily Whig, Richmond Semi-Weekly Whig, Abingdon Democrat, Wytheville Times, and the Daily Dispatch. Coverage chronicled the railroad expansion debate, railroad celebrations, and corporate responsibility. While this data set of archival materials provides a productive rendering of the rise of the railroad in Virginia and the public relations efforts that supported its emergence, my analysis is necessarily limited by the typical challenges associated with archival work, such as incomplete or missing documents, multiple interpretations of historical events, and the inherent ambiguity of the meanings ascribed to both historical documents and events (Holtzhausen, 2012; L’Etang, 2008; Wehmeier, 2015). A brief overview of railroad development in Virginia and the battle for westward expansion will provide useful historical context for the analysis that follows.

Historical context: Railroad development and the battle for westward expansion

Virginia’s political, business, and civic leaders began to recognize the significance of railroad development early in the 1800s. In 1816, Virginia created the Fund for Internal Improvements to support public works projects such as road, rail, bridge, and canal construction (Noe, 2003). The Chesterfield Railroad was Virginia’s first major rail endeavor (Graham, 2012). It began operations in 1831 near Richmond – in the heart of Virginia’s wealthy, slaveholding, planter-class aristocracy located in the eastern region of the state. By 1844, there were nine railroads in Virginia, all of which were located in the east, where they did a brisk business (Turner, 1947). Railroad development proceeded unevenly, consisting mostly of disparate, inchoate rail lines that served local communities (The Link Wanting in the System of Virginia Railroads, 1850; Smith, 1949). This made it easier to travel short distances but did not alleviate the problems associated with efficiently moving people and freight long distances, across Virginia and into other states (Smith, 1949).

Expanding Virginia’s rail system into the Western region of the state would prove especially challenging because the eastern elite wanted to retain control over the state’s economic development, which they believed meant curtailing railroad expansion westward into areas where large, plantation-style slavery was less prevalent (Dunaway, 2003; Noe, 2003). Easterners were troubled by the fact that some non-slaveholding Whites and a few prominent members of the slaveholding aristocracy in Southwestern Virginia favored gradual emancipation (Freehling, 1982). Still, many Southwestern Virginia residents supported railroad development and the economic boon it could bring to them, as well as the entire Commonwealth, regardless of how the slavery question was resolved (Noe, 2003). Thus, the development and expansion of the railroad in Virginia represented a battle over conflicting visions of what constituted a fully functioning society.

One of the most significant battles for railroad development and expansion occurred in Lynchburg, in the middle of the state, when a group of citizens began to advocate vigorously for a railroad that would run from their town westward into the hinterlands (Norfolk and Western Railway Company, 1936). On 5 April 1831, the state legislature passed an act to incorporate the Lynchburg and New River Railroad Company (Norfolk and Western Railway Company, 1936), but this victory was short-lived because the politically dominant eastern, slaveholding aristocracy refused to take action to bring an actual railroad to fruition. On the other hand, the legislature readily funded proposals to build canals, railroads, roads, and other infrastructure improvements to enhance the eastern region of the state because these enhancements supported their vision of a fully functioning society: one in which the eastern, planter-class elite maintained control of the state’s political economy (Lynchburg and Tennessee Railroad, 1848; Railroad Meeting, 1850; Remarks of Benj. Rush Floyd of Whythe, 1847).

The eastern elite feared that westward railroad expansion into the mountainous Appalachian region, rich with natural resources, would facilitate economic growth in the west that would eventually supplant the hegemony of the east and ruin the planter way of life that the eastern elite relied on. While many Lynchburg citizens also supported slavery, they did not fear westward railroad expansion would compromise the ‘peculiar institution’. Ultimately, the question of railroad development in Virginia concerned more than the innovation of transportation. The plight of the railroad was inextricably tied to the most compelling social issue of the day: slavery (Freehling, 1982; Noe, 2003; The Slavery Question, 1849; A Curious Argument, 1850; Wise, 1899).

Eventually, prominent members of the slaveholding eastern aristocracy began to see westward railroad expansion as beneficial for the entire state, with some vocalizing support for these efforts. For example, soon-to-be governor Henry A. Wise, a staunch supporter of slavery, was among those who saw the railroad as a mechanism to unite and strengthen the state (Wise, 1899). Attending a dinner hosted by the upper echelon of Norfolk, Virginia, in 1837, he told guests,

Never did any people under the sun make as gross a mistake as did the people of the Chesapeake counties, the counties of tidewater Virginia, in the year 1829, when the convention sat. Sir, we warred with our natural allies … We must heal and repair these internal dissensions which distract and divide us; we must restore State harmony, atone for past wrongs, become socially, politically and commercially united with the west, and all will be well’. (Wise, 1899: 141)

Wise argued that by supporting westward rail expansion, Western products ‘would flow down in the golden streams to enrich the east … Meanwhile the slaves of the East would find labor in the fertile valleys of the West. The whole state would be cemented together’ (as cited in Noe, 2003: 28) in slavery and united by the railroad.

Eastern Virginia newspapers also began to feature content favorable to westward rail expansion (Richmond Semi-Weekly Whig, 1848). For example, a 29 December 1848 editorial in the Richmond Daily Whig described the importance of a potential Lynchburg and Tennessee Railroad:

Of far greater importance to Virginia than any subject immediately connected with federal politics, is the contemplated improvement which is to pierce the Southwestern portion of the State … It is one of the means left us to restore our State to the position which nature seems to have designed for it; to make it first in wealth, first in population, and as a consequence of these two, first likewise in political power and importance … The enterprise which sets in motion the industry of our Southwestern brethren, and enables them to develop the enormous wealth locked up in the bowels of their mountains, must prove beneficial to nearly an equal degree to us who are to be its recipients. It will stimulate manufactures – arrest the tide of emigration – and give new life to business through all its departments. (Lynchburg and Tennessee Railroad, 1848: para 3)

Railroad advocate, William M. Burwell, a Southwestern Virginian, echoed similar sentiments when he admonished state leaders for perpetuating what he called ‘Virginia’s crying injustice to herself – of her benightedness to her own interests’ (‘The Great Southwestern Railway, 1849’: para 1). The newspaper recounted his remarks:

The mania of Virginia for keeping our Federal relations straight, has made her own affairs a secondary consideration. Such a thing as a State policy – a Virginia policy – she has never dreamed of. If she had been endowed with the faculty of keeping only one eye on the Federal Government and the other to her own State interests – as her sister States have invariably done, she would now, as she was before, and, for a time, after the revolution, be the leading State of the Union – as her geographical position, natural resources and extent of valuable territory authorize her to be. South Carolina has been touched by the same mania, but recovered in time to perceive that it was not the ravages of Federal usurpations which had caused the grass to grow in the streets of Charleston, but the natural course of trade, which flowed into other and more inviting channels. She built a great western railroad, which has extended her commerce and swept the grass from the streets of her great commercial emporium. Georgia, too, has sent a railroad to the West, with equal success. And these two Southern sisters are now tapping Virginia and drawing off a portion of her trade! If South Carolina and Georgia can have their railroads extending from the Atlantic to the Mississippi why should not Virginia? (‘The Great Southwestern Railway’, 1849: paras 1–3)

Given Virginia’s long-held status as the crown jewel of the American South, the state’s inability to keep pace with, let alone lead her sister states in an area of importance such as rail development was particularly disconcerting to Burwell and others who shared his views.

While Burwell provided a macro account of the problems Virginia faced because it had not embraced Western rail expansion, Benjamin Rush Floyd shed light on the micro-level, localized effects of the railroad void. In a speech given to the House of Delegates, two years before Burwell’s laments, Floyd explained,

There is no reward for agricultural labor here, because the cost of transportation consumes the profits; there are no inducements held out to manufacturers, for the raw material cannot be carried over our roads without loss to the producer, or such a price to the consumer as destroys the sale, by the manufacturer. Hence, it is, that capital and enterprise are driven to seek other places, where greater facilities for transportation are offered. (Remarks of Benj. Rush Floyd of Whythe, 1847)

The delegates were not swayed by Floyd or by similar pleas from others. Thus, advocates for Western rail expansion continued to hold town halls, host conventions, give speeches, lobby the legislature, produce pamphlets, publish newspaper articles, and disseminate information designed to generate support for the railroad for more than two decades before they made substantial progress.

After approximately 20 years, Lynchburg residents won their battle for a railroad in 1850, when the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad came to fruition. The Virginia and Tennessee is the primary predecessor of the Norfolk and Western Railroad Company, which was formed through the merger, acquisition, and consolidation of the Virginia and Tennessee railroad; the Atlantic, Mississippi, and Ohio; the New River Railroad Company; and many others, and which ultimately became today’s multibillion-dollar Norfolk Southern Company.

The Virginia and Tennessee Railroad was the first major step toward railroad expansion into Virginia’s mountainous, mineral-rich, and agriculturally abundant southwest region (The Southwestern Railroad, 1849; Norfolk and Western Railway Company, 1905,). Lynchburg’s railroad victory led to unprecedented industrial development and socioeconomic change across Virginia, necessitating ongoing public relations to sustain support.

Analyzing Virginia’s early railroad public relations efforts with fully functioning society theory

Conclusion

The Civil War settled the question of slavery, and westward railroad expansion helped propel Virginia into the industrial era. Drawing upon archival materials to analyze the rise of the railroad in Virginia and the public relations efforts that supported its westward expansion, this article offers several insights.

First, the historical analysis of Virginia’s railroad public relations history shows that corporate public relations discourse, particularly when connected to a new or disruptive product or technological innovation, can have broad societal implications that reach far beyond the publicity or operational aspects of the actual innovation, especially during times of tumult. Thus, railroad development and expansion in Virginia was about more than a new form of transportation. It was entangled with issues of politics and economics in ways that made celebrations more than mere publicity events to generate awareness and goodwill. Within the kind of deeply conflicted citizenry that characterized turn-of-the-century Virginia, celebrations became managerial efforts to transform uncertainty into order, by restoring the community’s faith in itself and by instilling faith in the railroad as the guarantor of society’s prosperity.

Second, the case of Virginia’s pioneer railroads also confirms that corporate responsibility was an important part of early corporate public relations efforts for some businesses. This does not necessarily require a dismissal of traditional approaches to public relations history that narrowly characterize its nascent practices as unethical manipulation of public opinion, concerted efforts to combat negative press, or techniques to ward off activists. However, the case of Virginia’s early railroads suggests the need for broader conceptualizations of the origins of public relations practice in corporate contexts.

Finally, while FFST is typically used to explore contemporary affairs, using it as a theoretical framework in my historical analysis of the case of Virginia’s railroad development productively extends the theory’s application into historical inquiry, opening up fertile new ground for FFST scholarship. At the same time, using FFST to guide an analysis into public relations history surfaces the critical utility of the theory by drawing attention to the varied and complex nature of the field’s emergence without venerating or denigrating its origins. In sum, this historical analysis of Virginia’s public relations history encourages us to confront taken-for-granted assumptions about public relations history in ways that invite new and nuanced insights.