Arthur W. Page

Arthur Wilson Page (September 10, 1883 – September 5, 1960) was a vice president and director of AT&T from 1927 to 1947.

Arthur Wilson Page
Born	Arthur Wilson Page (1883-09-10)September 10, 1883 Aberdeen, North Carolina, United States
Died	September 5, 1960(1960-09-05) (aged 76) New York City, United States
Education	Harvard College (1905)
Occupation(s)	Business executive, public relations pioneer
Years active	1905–1960
Employer(s)	Doubleday, Page & Company AT&T
Known for	"Father of corporate public relations" Page Principles The Page Plan (MRTC)
Notable work	The Bell Telephone System (1941)
Title	Vice President and Director, AT&T
Term	1927–1947
Spouse	Mollie W. Hall ​ (m. 1912)​
Children	4
Father	Walter Hines Page
Awards	Medal for Merit (War Department)

He is often referred to as "the father of corporate public relations" for his pioneering work at AT&T.^[1][2] The company was experiencing resistance from the public to its monopolization efforts, and Page was the first person to hold a public relations title on the board of a major corporation.^[3]

Page is credited with establishing a series of public relations principles generally referred to as the Page Principles.^[4][5] Beyond his corporate career, Page served as a trusted advisor to the U.S. government on public and foreign policy matters, serving multiple administrations from Roosevelt to Eisenhower. Following his retirement from AT&T, he continued a successful career as an independent consultant to numerous corporations and philanthropic organizations.^[3]

Biography

Early life and education

Arthur Wilson Page was born on September 10, 1883, to Walter Hines Page and his wife, Willa A. Page, of Aberdeen, North Carolina. His father was a prominent journalist and publisher who edited several prestigious publications, including Harper's Magazine and The Atlantic Monthly, before co-founding the publishing house Doubleday, Page & Company.

For his secondary education, Arthur studied at the Cambridge Latin School in Massachusetts and later attended the Lawrenceville School. He subsequently enrolled at Harvard College, graduating in 1905 with what he later described as a "gentleman's C." Despite his undistinguished academic record, he remained active in campus life and maintained lifelong involvement in educational causes, including fundraising for the education of African American teachers and service on Harvard's Board of Overseers. He received honorary Doctor of Law degrees from Columbia University in 1954 and Williams College in 1959.^[3]

Publishing career

Though initially aspiring to become an architect, Page joined his father's publishing business after graduating from Harvard.^[3] He began working at Doubleday, Page & Company, focusing on magazine editing, particularly for The World's Work. When his father was appointed United States Ambassador to the Court of St. James's in 1913, Page assumed editorship of the magazine, a position he held for fourteen years. During this period, he wrote numerous influential editorials that explored and articulated the special obligations of corporations within a democratic society.^[6][7]

On June 1, 1912, Page married Mollie W. Hall. The couple had four children: Mollie, Walter Hines Page II, Arthur W. Page Jr., and John Hall Page.^[7][3]

World War I service

During World War I, Page traveled to France to assist in creating propaganda leaflets for the Allied Expeditionary Force's Psychological Subsection. These leaflets, which detailed the humane treatment afforded to prisoners of war, were distributed by aircraft to encourage German soldiers to surrender.^[3] This experience profoundly influenced his later public relations philosophy, particularly his conviction that effective communication must be grounded in substantive truth rather than mere persuasion. As he explained in a 1927 speech, the leaflet campaign succeeded when Allied forces were advancing, but "when they were losing, we didn't tell them anything. Nobody had time to drop paper on them. Guns and bombs and soldiers didn't stop them, and we didn't bother with the minor horrors of war."^[8]

AT&T career

In 1927, Walter S. Gifford, president of AT&T, recruited Page to serve as vice-president for public relations, making him the first person to hold that executive rank at a major corporation. One of his initial assignments involved preparing a speech for Gifford to deliver in October 1927 to the National Association of Railroad and Utilities Commissioners meeting in Dallas, Texas.^[9] This address, commonly known as the "Dallas speech," announced AT&T's new corporate policy committing the company to "just and reasonable" conduct in all public affairs, prioritizing optimal service delivery at minimal cost over short-term profit maximization.^[3][8]

Page's appointment came at a critical juncture for AT&T, which had determined that 90 percent of its press coverage was negative in the early 1900s. Through strategic changes in business practices and proactive information dissemination to media outlets, this figure was reduced to 60 percent during his tenure.^[10] According to business historian John Brooks, Page repositioned the company as a public utility and significantly enhanced public appreciation for its societal contributions.^[9]

During his twenty-year tenure, Page demonstrated prescient strategic thinking by anticipating and preparing the public for technological developments including ship-to-shore and transoceanic telephone service.^[7] He pioneered the systematic use of public opinion research to guide corporate decision-making, commissioning annual surveys and encouraging AT&T's subsidiaries to adopt similar practices.^[3] When the Federal Communications Commission launched a comprehensive investigation into AT&T's market dominance in 1935, Page responded by authoring The Bell Telephone System (1941), a book defending the company's policies that achieved remarkable commercial success with nearly 200,000 copies sold.^[3]

Critics have argued that AT&T's public relations strategy under Page involved questionable practices. Stuart Ewen documented how the company leveraged its substantial advertising expenditures with newspapers to influence editorial coverage and had its public relations staff author feature stories that were subsequently published as independent journalism.^[11]

Page retired from AT&T in 1947 but remained on the board of directors until 1948.^[3]

Government service

Throughout his career, Page maintained close relationships with successive U.S. administrations, serving as an advisor on public and foreign policy matters from the Roosevelt through Eisenhower presidencies.^[7] During World War II, he functioned as the War Department's unofficial public relations counsel, declining a formal offer to serve as assistant to the Secretary of War while accepting appointment to the Joint Army and Navy Committee on Welfare and Recreation.^[3] In 1944, he traveled to England to assist in troop preparation for the D-Day invasion and subsequently authored the news release distributed by President Truman's press secretary announcing the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. The War Department recognized his contributions with the Medal for Merit.^[7][3]

Following the war, Page shifted his political affiliation to the Republican Party and provided strategic assistance to Dwight D. Eisenhower's presidential campaign. In 1955, he chaired an advisory committee that produced a Cabinet report on national transportation requirements for the Eisenhower administration.^[7][3]

New York-New Jersey Metropolitan Rapid Transit Commission

Page's transportation expertise led to his appointment as project director for the New York–New Jersey Metropolitan Rapid Transit Commission (MRTC), established in 1954 to address the deteriorating commuter rail crisis between the two states.^[12]

In May 1957, Page presented the comprehensive "Page Report" to the MRTC. The plan's centerpiece proposed a $400 million bi-state rail loop connecting New Jersey commuter railroads with the New York City subway system through two new Hudson River tunnels, positioned at the Battery and 59th Street.^[12] The proposal additionally called for establishing the Metropolitan Transit District of New York and New Jersey, a powerful bi-state agency responsible for constructing and operating the loop system, improving suburban rail infrastructure, and funding an anticipated annual deficit of $12 million through taxes levied on served communities.^[12][13]

The Page Report generated considerable public debate. Proponents viewed the plan as essential for preserving the region's failing commuter rail infrastructure.^[14] However, the proposal faced substantial criticism from influential figures including Robert Moses, who characterized the plan as "wasteful" and "monstrous," objecting to subsidizing what he termed "busted, lazy and backward private enterprise."^[15][16] New Jersey county officials expressed particular concern regarding the proposed tax burden on their constituents.^[17]

The MRTC ultimately endorsed a modified iteration of Page's proposal, increasing the estimated cost to $500 million and substituting a new Manhattan subway line for the originally proposed BMT track utilization.^[18] The commission's final report, released in January 1958, formally recommended establishing the Metropolitan Transit District.^[19]

Following extensive legislative deliberation, the enabling legislation passed in New York in April 1958 but was defeated in the New Jersey Assembly in December of that year due to opposition over financing mechanisms and representation structures.^[20][21] Despite this legislative failure, the MRTC's work provided the foundation for the establishment of the New York-New Jersey Transportation Agency in 1959, a more limited bi-state entity with a mandate to develop comprehensive regional transportation planning.^[22][23] This agency represented the first step in an institutional evolution that led to the formation of the Tri-State Transportation Committee in August 1961, which subsequently became the Tri-State Transportation Commission in 1965, was reorganized as the Tri-State Regional Planning Commission in 1971, and ultimately evolved into the New York Metropolitan Transportation Council in June 1982.^[24]

Later career and death

After retiring from AT&T in 1947, Page established a successful consulting practice, advising an extensive roster of clients including AT&T, Kennecott Copper, Prudential Insurance, International Telephone and Telegraph, Continental Oil, Chase National Bank, Consolidated Edison, and Champion Paper.^[3] He simultaneously served as a trustee for several prestigious institutions, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Carnegie Corporation, and the J. Pierpont Morgan Library, while volunteering for numerous philanthropic organizations.^[3]

Beginning in 1950, Page directed the Crusade for Freedom, which served as the fundraising and publicity apparatus for Radio Free Europe. This organization was subsequently revealed to be a propaganda operation funded primarily by the Central Intelligence Agency to promote anti-communist sentiment during the Korean War period.^[3]

Page died on September 5, 1960, in New York City, following complications from two surgical procedures for diverticulitis.^[3]

Legacy

Page was among the founding members of the "Wisemen," an influential group of pioneering public relations professionals that included Pendleton Dudley and John W. Hill.^[3] His professional legacy is commemorated through two organizations bearing his name: the Arthur W. Page Society, founded in 1983 for senior public relations executives,^[25] and the Arthur W. Page Center for Integrity in Public Communication, a research center at Pennsylvania State University dedicated to advancing ethics and responsibility in corporate communication.^[26]