Merrick Taylor Jackson was born in Trenton, New Jersey, on June 15, 1902. Raised by his mother, a single parent, he graduated from Trenton High School (1919) and Lafayette College (1923). In 1923 Jackson was appointed a member of the faculty of the American University in Cairo, where he taught English and modern history for two years.
In 1927 Jackson began his association with the field of corporate communications when he was hired as sports editor for an in-house newspaper published by the Western Electric Company. In subsequent years Jackson edited two nationwide departmental newspapers for Western Electric and served as a staff member of its magazine Western Electric News. In 1933 Jackson began a similar position with the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey, returning to Western Electric in 1936 as editorial director.
During this period Jackson assumed a leading role in the emerging field of corporate communications, eventually serving as president of the National Council of Industrial Editors in 1943.
Because of his association with the National Safety Council Jackson went to Washington, D.C., during World War II to prepare a program to increase sales of war bonds through company organs. Later he also developed Firepower, a publication for the employees of the nation's ordnance plants. Thereafter Jackson briefly returned to Western Electric, then worked for fundraiser John Price Jones and N.W. Ayers before becoming associated with the public relations firm Hill & Knowlton, Inc., in 1945.
For the next twenty years Jackson edited Steelways, the slick bi-monthly publication that Hill & Knowlton produced for its largest account, the American Iron & Steel Institute. Under Jackson's editorship the magazine increased its circulation from 30,000 to 300,000, and its quality was widely recognized. In addition to his editorial work for AISI, Jackson developed the concept of the public relations audit which he carried out for twelve steel companies, and in 1954 Jackson and Loet Velmans also applied the technique to the activities in Southeastern Asia of California Texas Oil Company (Caltex), another Hill & Knowlton client.
After AISI decided to produce Steelways on its own, Jackson retired from Hill & Knowlton to establish his own communications service, Direct Lines, Inc. Chief among his accomplishments during this period was the establishment and editorship of Hoover Worldwide for the Hoover Company.
Additional biographical information may be found in the introductory folder of the CAREER NARRATIVE series.
