SPREADING THE IDEAL OF MASS SHAREOWNERSHIP: PUBLIC RELATIONS AND THE NYSE

In the 1950s, the New York Stock Exchange, led by President Keith Funston, embarked on an ambitious public relations campaign christened “Own Your Share of American Business.” This paper justaposes the “Own Your Share”campaign with earlier NYSE image-making efforts. Tracing the evolution in Exchange public relations sheds lights on how the Big Board gradually embraced mass shareownership as a worthy goal and endorsed mass merchandising as a legitimate way to achieve it.