Julie Hall
Revolutionary Spin: How PR Shaped the American Revolution
As America marks its 250th anniversary, much has been written about the battles, personalities, and politics that gave birth to a nation. In Revolutionary Spin, communications strategist Julie Hall looks at the Revolution through a different lens: public relations. She argues that the American Revolution was perhaps the greatest PR campaign ever waged—a masterclass in shaping public opinion, creating powerful symbols, mobilizing supporters, and turning ideas into action. Drawing on her 30-year career advising global companies, organizations, and causes, Hall explores how the revolutionaries used many of the same communications strategies we recognize today—and how storytelling helped turn a rebellion into a revolution.
Hall will also bring history off the page with two extraordinary original artifacts on loan for History Camp that recently arrived in Boston via the Tall Ship Eagle and were on display in The Boston Globe: A July 22, 1776 edition of the Boston Gazette, which helps illuminate her chapter on the Declaration of Independence as “the greatest global press release ever written,” and an original letter written by John Hancock. Attendees are invited to see these remarkable pieces firsthand and consider the Revolution not simply as history, but as a communications campaign unfolding in real time.
Julie Hall is a communications strategist whose 30-year career in public relations has included advising CEOs and telling stories for some of the world’s best-known brands, including Coca-Cola, Dunkin’ Donuts, McDonald’s, Hasbro, Crayola, and leading healthcare and life sciences companies. An American history major in college specializing in Colonial America, Hall lives in the shadow of the Bunker Hill Monument in Charlestown, Massachusetts, where she serves as President of the Charlestown Historical Society (charlestownhistoricalsociety.org).
Hall is the founder of Bunker Hill 250 (bh250.org) and creator of the Brothers of the Battle of Bunker Hill Descendants Program (charlestownhistoricalsociety.org/about-us), which brought together descendants and uncovered family stories and ephemera connected to those who fought in the battle. That work was recently featured by GBH in its “Revolutionary Roadshow,” showcasing artifacts and family treasures from the descendants program. She is also a board member of the Dr. Joseph Warren Foundation and a member of the Bunker Hill Monument Association, Massachusetts Historical Society, and Boston Athenaeum, and serves on several nonprofit boards.
Revolutionary Spin brings Hall’s two lifelong passions together—American history and the art and science of public relations—to tell the story of the Revolution through a lens unlike any other.
