Ivy Ledbetter Lee is considered by some to be the founder of modern public relations

Public relations

Public relations is the actions of a corporation, store, government, individual, etc., in promoting goodwill between itself and the public, the community, employees, customers, etc....

. The term Public Relations is to be found for the first time in the preface of the 1897 Yearbook of Railway Literature.
Ivy Lee was born near Cedartown, Georgia

Cedartown, Georgia

Cedartown is a city in Polk County, Georgia, United States. As of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 9,750. The city is the county seat of Polk County...

 on July 16, 1877 as the son of a Methodist minister, James Wideman Lee, who founded an important Atlanta family. He studied at Emory College

Emory University

Emory University is a private research university in metropolitan Atlanta, located in the Druid Hills section of unincorporated DeKalb County, Georgia, United States. The university was founded as Emory College in 1836 in Oxford, Georgia by a small group of Methodists and was named in honor of...

 and then graduated from Princeton

Princeton University

Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....

.