Community Building and Early Public Relations

Donnalyn Pompper (Ph.D., Media & Communication, Temple University) teaches courses in and researches public relations, corporate social responsibility, and social identity. Overall, her research provides routes for enabling people, globally, to achieve their maximum potential at work, to embrace their intersecting social identity dimensions (e.g., age, ethnicity, gender), and to critically examine these issues across mass media representations. Pompper is an internationally recognized and award-winning scholar. She holds the Accredited Public Relations credential from Public Relations Society of America. Prior to joining the academy, she worked as a public relations manager and journalist, bringing 25 years of practical experience to the classroom and her research. She worked in public affairs management at Campbell’s Soup Company, marketing public relations management at Tasty Baking Company, where she created the public relations department, and as an account manager at Lewis, Gilman & Kynett (Philadelphia’s then-largest public relations/advertising firm). She also worked as a daily newspaper freelance reporter at The Philadelphia Inquirer and the Courier-Post, as well as news editor at a weekly New Jersey newspaper chain.

Part I: Overview 1 (Re)discovering the Past in Order to Understand Public Relations History Today 2 Re-examining the American West's Lure and Women’s Role Representations Part II: Gendering and Expanding Roles as Early Public Relations Work 3 Interrogating Pioneer Women's Role as Caretaker/Advocate 4 Exploring Public Relations from the Care Perspective: Pioneer Women's Role as Community Builder of Meeting Houses and Schools 5 Civilizing Function: Pioneer Women and Religion Part III: Ideologies, Women's Work, and the Female Frontier 6 Understanding Pioneer Women's Agency and Leadership 7 Expanding Women’s Role: Emotional Connection for Social Cohesion 8 Concluding Thoughts and Direction for Discovering More Women's Voices for Public Relations History