BARTON, Bruce (Fairchild) 1886-1967

PERSONAL: Born August 5, 1886, in Robbins, TN; died July 5, 1967, in New York, NY; son of William Eleazar (a minister) and Esther Treat (a schoolteacher; maiden name, Bushnell) Barton; married Esther Maude Randall, October 2, 1913 (died, 1951); children: three. Education: Attended Berea College, 1903; Amherst College, graduated, 1907. Politics: Republican. Religion: Congregationalist.

CAREER: Worked as a time-keeper for a railway company in Montana, c. 1907; Home Herald, Chicago, IL, became managing editor; Continent (Presbyterian magazine), New York, NY, journalist, 1909; Collier's, New York, NY, assistant sales manager, beginning 1912; Every Week, editor and editorial writer, 1914-18; Barton, Durstine & Osborn (advertising agency; later known as Batten, Barton, Durstine & Osborn), cofounder, c. 1918, partner and copywriter, 1918-61, chair of board of directors until 1961. U.S. Congress, Republican representative from the state of New York, 1937-41. Also worked as a journalist for Housekeeper. Volunteer worker for Salvation Army during World War I; United War Work, publicity chair for fund drive, 1918.

MEMBER: Phi Beta Kappa.

WRITINGS:

The Resurrection of the Soul, 1912.

A Young Man's Jesus, Pilgrim Press (Boston, MA), 1914.

The Women Who Came at Night: Being the Experiences of a Minister, Pilgrim Press (Boston, MA), 1914.

More Power to You: Fifty Editorials from Every Week, Century Co. (New York, NY), 1917.

The Making of George Groton, Doubleday, Page and Co. (Garden City, NY), 1918.

It's a Good Old World: Being a Collection of LittleEssays on Various Subjects of Human Interest, Century Co. (New York, NY), 1920.

(With Charles W. Hurd) Business Correspondence, Alexander Hamilton Institute (New York, NY), 1921.

Better Days (collected editorials), Century C. (New York, NY), 1924.

The Man Nobody Knows: A Discovery of Jesus, Bobbs-Merrill (Indianapolis, IN), 1925, revised edition published in The Man and the Book Nobody Knows, Bobbs-Merrill (Indianapolis, IN), 1956, published as The Man Nobody Knows: A Discovery of the Real Jesus, with new introduction by Richard M. Fried, I. R. Dee (Chicago, IL), 2000.

The Book Nobody Knows, Bobbs-Merrill (Indianapolis, IN), 1926, revised edition published in The Man and the Book Nobody Knows, Bobbs-Merrill (Indianapolis, IN), 1956.

(With Bernard Lichtenberg) Advertising Campaigns, Alexander Hamilton Institute (New York, NY), 1926.

What Can a Man Believe?, Bobbs-Merrill (Indianapolis, IN), 1927.

The Man of Galilee: Twelve Scenes from the Life ofChrist, illustrated by Dean Cornwell, Cosmopolitan Book Corp. (New York, NY), 1928.

On the up and Up (essays), Bobbs-Merrill (Indianapolis, IN), 1929.

He Upset the World, Bobbs-Merrill (Indianapolis, IN), 1932.

A Parade of the States, Doubleday, Doran (Garden City, NY), 1932.

Author of shorter works, including pamphlets. Contributor to magazines and newspapers.

Barton's papers are collected at the State Historical Society of Wisconsin, Madison.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

books

Encyclopedia of World Biography, 2nd edition, Gale (Detroit, MI), 1998.

Gaebelein, Arno Clemens, The Christ We Know:Meditations on the Person and Glory of Our Lord Jesus Christ; The Best Answer to the Book "The Man Nobody Knows," Bible Institute Colportage (Chicago, IL), 1927.

St. James Encyclopedia of Popular Culture, St. James Press (Detroit, MI), 2000.

periodicals

American Quarterly, fall, 1981, Leo P. Ribuffo, "Jesus Christ as Business Statesman: Bruce Barton and the Selling of Corporate Capitalism."

South Atlantic Quarterly, summer, 1977, James A. Neuchaterlein, "Bruce Barton and the Business Ethos of the 1920s."

OBITUARIES:

periodicals

New York Times, July 6, 1967.*