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Abstract
Francisco “Pancho” Villa was not just a military general or quasi-politician, but also a practitioner of public relations. By close observation of his actions and words, as recorded by primary sources, this study explores his strategies and tactics to build support among three specifically targeted audiences: the people of Mexico, American war correspondents, and the people of the United States. By examining secondary literature about public relations and about Pancho Villa’s life, this study finds evidence of his practicing public relations as we understand it today. This analysis is enriched through the use of primary documents from the archives of Byron C. Utecht at the University of Texas at Arlington, who interviewed and observed Villa.
Notes
1 Telegram from R.H. Lyman to B.C. Utecht, 30 April 1914, Scrapbook 1, 1914-16, Byron C. Utecht Papers, Special Collections, The University of Texas at Arlington Libraries, Arlington, Texas (henceforth BCUP).
2 Correspondence from New York World to B.C. Utecht, 28 April 1914, Scrapbook 1, 1914-16, BCUP.
3 Correspondence from R.H. Lyman to B.C. Utecht, 27 April 1914, Scrapbook 1, 1914-16, BCUP.
4 Newspaper clipping, “Utecht First to Enter Saltillo,” Scrapbook 1, 1914-16, BCUP; Newspaper clipping, Boyce House, “Austin Newspaperman Recalls Romantic Days with Mexico’s Bandit-Patriot, Pancho Villa,” Scrapbook 1, 1914-16, BCUP.
5 “Austin Newspaperman Recalls Romantic Days.”
6 “Pancho Villa’s Paper Money,” The E-Sylum 21, no. 45 (November 11, 2018), https://www.coinbooks.org/v21/esylum_v21n45a26.html. This link includes images of twenty-peso notes distributed by the bank of the state of Chihuahua.
7 Newspaper clipping, B.C. Utecht, “Mexican People the Sufferers of Revolution,” New York World, January 30, 1915, Scrapbook 1, 1914-16, BCUP.
8 Keyword searches for “Byron Utecht” and “Byron C. Utecht” in Communication and Mass Media Complete, the most robust electronic database of journalism-related articles, revealed nothing. Communication and Mass Media Complete incorporates the former data bases CommSearch and Mass Media Articles Index, along with other sources, to search 570 academic journals. Only one book by Utecht could be found, a 1937 examination of Texas politics. See Byron C. Utecht, The Legislature and the Texas People (San Antonio, Texas: Naylor, 1937).
9 Tom Watson, “A (Very Brief) History of PR,” Communication Director, November 21, 2012, https://www.communication-director.com/issues/b2b-or-not-b2b/very-brief-history-pr/#.X1mhy3lKjIU.
10 Tom Watson and Paul Noble, Evaluating Public Relations: A Guide to Planning, Research and Measurement 3rd ed. (London: Kogan Page Limited, 2014), 9.
11 James E. Grunig, “Public Relations and International Affairs: Effects, Ethics and Responsibility,” Journal of International Affairs 47, no. 1 (July 1, 1993): 137–62.
12 Ibid., 143.
13 Ibid., 144.
14 Ibid., 145.
15 Ibid., 146.
16 Margot Opdyke Lamme and Karen Miller Russell, “Removing the Spin: Toward a New Theory of Public Relations History,” Journalism Communication Monographs 11, no. 4 (January 2010): 281–362.
17 Tom Watson, “The Evolution of Public Relations Measurement and Evaluation,” Public Relations Review 38, no. 3 (September 2012): 390–98.
18 Tom Watson, Latin American and Caribbean Perspectives on the Development of Public Relations: Other Voices (London: Palgrave Macmillan UK, 2014), 72-85.
19 David Conrads, “There’s No Such Thing as Bad Publicity,” The Christian Science Monitor, August 27, 1998, B11-B-1.4.
20 Jonathan Auerbach, Weapons of Democracy: Propaganda, Progressivism, and American Public Opinion (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2015), 133.
21 “1914 – Publicist Ivy Lee,” History of Business Journalism, http://www.bizjournalismhistory.org/1910_1914.htm.
22 Ibid.
23 Edward Bernays, Crystallizing Public Opinion (New York: Boni & Liveright, 1923).
24 Ibid., 162.
25 The so-called “Torches of Freedom” campaign often has been hailed as a milestone in removing the taboo against women smoking in public. However, research by Vanessa Murphree suggests that the event had limited impact at the time and that Bernays rewrote history by exaggerating its importance over the course of his 103-year life. See Vanessa Murphree, “Edward Bernays’s 1929 ‘Torches of Freedom’ March: Myths and Historical Significance,” American Journalism 32, no. 3 (2015): 258-81.
26 Cayce Myers, Public Relations History: Theory, Practice, and Profession (New York: Routledge, 2020), 103.
27 Haldeen Braddy, “Pancho Villa, Folk Hero of the Mexican Border,” Folklore 7, no. 4 (October 1948): 355, https://doi.org/10.2307/1497840.
28 Friedrich Katz, The Life and Times of Pancho Villa (Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 1988), 656.
29 Steven O’Brien, Pancho Villa (New York: Chelsea House, 1994).
30 Reed Johnson, “Pancho Villa, Leader of the Mexican Revolution and Hollywood Movie Star,” The Los Angeles Times, May 1, 2010, https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2010-may-01-la-et-0501-redcat-20100501-story.html.
31 Ibid.
32 Ibid.
33 Mike Dash, “Uncovering the Truth Behind the Myth of Pancho Villa, Movie Star,” Smithsonian Magazine, November 6, 2012, https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/uncovering-the-truth-behind-the-myth-of-pancho-villa-movie-star-110349996/.
34 Ibid.
35 Katz, The Life and Times of Pancho Villa, 325.
36 Movie Poster, “The Life of General Villa,” 1914, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0004223/mediaviewer/rm1567035904.
37 New York World newspaper clipping, Byron C. Utecht, “What Will We Do with Villa Now That He’s Out of a Job?,” Scrapbook 1, 1914-16, BCUP.
38 Allen Barra, “Pancho Villa’s War (Movie),” HistoryNet, accessed June 29, 2020, https://www.historynet.com/pancho-villas-war-movie.htm.
39 Ibid.
40 Mark Cronlund Anderson, Pancho Villa’s Revolution by Headlines (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2000), 22-88.
41 Ibid., 56.
42 Ibid., 191.
43 New York World newspaper clipping, B.C. Utecht, “Carranza’s Task and Opportunity Equally Great,” Scrapbook 1, 1914-16, BCUP.
44 Newspaper clipping, Byron C. Utecht, “Villa Rather Be a Ranchman than Country’s Ruler,” Scrapbook 1, 1914-16, BCUP.
45 John Reed, Insurgent Mexico (New York: International Publishers, 1914), 257.
46 Anderson, Pancho Villa’s Revolution by Headlines, 48.
47 New York World newspaper clipping, Byron C. Utecht, “Carranza Moves Capital, Reopens Nation’s Schools,” Scrapbook 1, 1914-16, BCUP.
48 Newspaper clipping, B.C. Utecht, “Villa, though Uneducated and Originally Bandit, Is Natural Leader, Courageous and Resourceful,” Scrapbook 1, 1914-16, BCUP
49 Ibid.
50 Newspaper clipping, B.C. Utecht, “Carranza in for Real Trouble; He’s Going to Back Baseball to Supplant Bullfighting,” Scrapbook 1, 1914-16, BCUP.
51 “Carranza’s Task and Opportunity Equally Great.”
52 Steven O’Brien, Pancho Villa (New York: Chelsea House, 1994), 52-53.
53 Ibid., 52.
54 Katz, The Life and Times of Pancho Villa, 232.
55 “What Will We Do with Villa Now That He’s Out of a Job?”
56 “Austin Newspaperman Recalls Romantic Days with Mexico’s Bandit-Patriot, Pancho Villa.”
57 Newspaper clipping, Byron C. Utecht, “Carranza Moves Capital, Reopens Nation’s Schools,” New York World, Scrapbook 1, 1914-16, BCUP.
58 Newspaper clipping, “A Villa Eyewitness,” Scrapbook 1, 1914-16, BCUP.
59 Copies of engraved invitations, printed with ornate typefaces, are in Utecht’s archive.
60 “What Will We Do with Villa Now That He’s Out of a Job?”
61 Telegram from New York World to B.C. Utecht, 20 January 1915, Scrapbook 1, 1914-16, BCUP.
62 Telegram from New York World to B.C. Utecht, 20 January 1915, Scrapbook 1, 1914-16, BCUP.
63 Newspaper clipping, “Fort Worth Man Visits Gen. Villa,” Scrapbook 1, 1914-16, BCUP.
64 Newspaper clipping, “Former Ottumwan Interviews Villa,” Scrapbook 1, 1914-16, BCUP. Utecht was a native of Ottumwa, Iowa.
65 Newspaper clipping, “Former Ottumwan Interviews Villa,” Scrapbook 1, 1914-16, BCUP. Utecht was a native of Ottumwa, Iowa.
66 Ibid.
67 Transcript of interview between Byron Utecht and Pancho Villa, Scrapbook 1, 1914-16, BCUP.
68 Anderson, Pancho Villa’s Revolution by Headlines, 20.
69 Ibid., 21.
70 Ibid., 25.
71 Carl von Clausewitz, On War, ed. Michael Howard, trans. Peter Paret (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1989), 87.
72 “Villa, though Uneducated and Originally Bandit, Is Natural Leader, Courageous and Resourceful.”
73 For a Pulitzer Prize-winning biography, see T. Harry Williams, Huey Long (New York: Vintage Press, 1981). Long, born dirt poor, championed in Louisiana a political platform he named Share Our Wealth, which aimed to redistribute money from the rich to the poor during the depths of the Depression. For the most thorough, and probably best, biography of Johnson, see the four-volume set by Robert Caro that began with The Path to Power (New York: Alfred a Knopf Inc., 1982). Caro plans a fifth volume.
74 “Byron C. Utecht Papers: A Guide,” Texas Archival Resources Online, https://legacy.lib.utexas.edu/taro/utarl/02172/arl-02172.html.
75 Ibid.
76 Associated Press, “TV Movie Portrays Rancho Villa as Movie Star, Marketing Whiz,” Central Michigan Life, September 3, 2003, https://cmuhistory.cmich.edu/?a=d&d=IsabellaCML20030903-01.1.14&.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Young Joon Lim
Young Joon Lim is an associate professor of communication at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, teaching public relations and media campaigns.
Michael S. Sweeney
Michael S. Sweeney is a professor emeritus in the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism at Ohio University. A historian specializing in wartime journalism and censorship, he is the author of 23 books and monographs.