Bruce Fairchild Barton

Bruce Fairchild Barton (August 5, 1886 – July 5, 1967) was an American author, advertising executive, and Republican politician. He represented Manhattan in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1937 to 1941. In 1940, he ran for election to the U.S. Senate, but was defeated by incumbent Senator James M. Mead. During the 1940 campaign, Barton became a high-profile target of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who was running for re-election to a third term and identified his opposition with the epithet "Martin, Barton, and Fish!"

Barton was born in Robbins, Tennessee in 1886, the son of a Congregational clergyman. He grew up in various places throughout the U.S., including the metro Chicago area. Barton was raised in Oak Park, Illinois, ten miles from downtown Chicago on the rail line.

Bruce Barton's father, William E. Barton, was a prolific writer and a devout Christian pastor serving the First Congregational Church for over 20 years. Barton's mother, Esther Treat Bushnell, was an elementary school teacher who was descended from a number of colonial Connecticut leaders including Francis Bushnell, Robert Treat, and John Davenport. Barton's siblings were Charles William Barton (b. 1887), Helen (b. 1889), and Robert Shawmut Barton (b. 1894). Barton's parents also took in a boy by the name of Webster Betty, in addition to an African-American girl named Rebecca, whose mother had asked Barton's parents to take care of her.

Journalism appealed to Barton even as a child and he sold newspapers in his free time when he was just nine. Later on during his teenage years he served as the editor for his high school newspaper, and became a reporter for a local newspaper called the Oak Park Weekly. Barton also helped run his uncle's maple syrup business, which became successful with his contributions.

Barton first enrolled in Berea College (where his father attended college) during 1903 and later transferred to Amherst College in Massachusetts, where he graduated in 1907.

Barton worked as a publicist and magazine editor before co-founding the Barton, Durstine & Osborn (BDO) advertising agency in 1919. Nine years later the agency merged with the George Batten agency to become Batten, Barton, Durstine & Osborn (BBDO). Barton replaced Roy S. Durstine as president of BBDO during 1939 and then headed the BBDO agency until 1961, all while helping his business partners and employees toward establishing Madison Avenue in New York City as the Mecca for the advertising industry, advancing institutional advertising for American corporations, and developing BBDO into one of the major creative advertising firms operating in the United States.