Author to Lobby for National Anthem Day

While freelancing for The New York Times, Newsday and other blue-chip publications, I often encountered people who made great accomplishments in fields that they came to by seeming happenstance. A dozen years ago, if someone had told me that I would be a PR pro, I too would have recoiled in shock.

Though I came into the profession by way of journalism, I started out as an aspiring history professor. I am grateful for the twists and turns in life that led me down my present road.

I would have also been surprised if someone had told me that I would be the author of the first-ever narrative history of The Star-Spangled Banner. It is, after all, our national anthem and it is unfathomable that no comprehensive chronicle of this important song existed before I came along.

My PR experience helped me to improve, publish and publicize the book. My story is about perseverance, persistence and refusing to give up, qualities that are vital in any profession.

The genesis of my book dates to 1996 when I needed a topic for a graduate history seminar at Stony Brook University. As a musician, I wanted to combine my interests in history and music. Then the thought flashed into my head: every American knows The Star-Spangled Banner. The 200^th anniversary would arrive in 2014 and the song carried a lot of historical – and controversial – baggage: think Jimi Hendrix.

Though Americans may revere the song for its official status, I had never heard anyone praise the tune: most people tell me they prefer America, the Beautiful. When I realized that it took Congress 117 years from the song’s inception to make it the anthem and surmised (incorrectly) that they did so in 1931 to bind the country through patriotism during the Great Depression, I figured I had a decent paper topic.

After a semester’s worth of research, I knew had discovered something big. I received a Smithsonian Institution fellowship and spent the summer of 1999 combing the archives in Maryland and Washington, D. C. Then, life intervened and the project stalled as my freelance writing took up a lot of time. When the newspaper business imploded, I became a public relations executive.

Not getting my Ph.D. and letting the book project languish became the twin regrets of my life. As a sports fan, I cringed every time I heard the song, knowing that I was squandering a great opportunity. Even though writing the book seemed like climbing Mount Everest, ever since I latched onto the topic the year 2014 – the song’s bicentennial – loomed.

In 2012, after several personal setbacks, inspiration struck. I realized that if 2014 came and went without my completing the project, I would hate myself. So I dusted off my thigh-high mound of documents and spent every waking moment outside of work writing. Somehow, by the end of the year, I had finished a first draft.

I am still flummoxed that no one has written anything substantial about the song. Publishers released books chronicling My Country, ‘Tis of Thee, The Battle Hymn of the Republic, America the Beautiful and God Bless America, but to me these titles merely circled the bulls-eye. Even if someone did write about the anthem, I knew that I had compiled a singular trove of documents and developed a unique interpretation of the song.

I shopped the book around, but the New York publishing houses wanted nothing to do with “serious” history, as one agent called it. Their indifference gave me the freedom to write the book I wanted to write – based on scholarship but accessible to every American with even a passing interest in the song.

Had I not been so fortunate to link up with Johns Hopkins University Press, I would have published it myself. The book is now in its second printing and so far the reviews are fabulous. The major lesson I learned is that by scooping up spoonfuls of dirt, a mountain appears.

I am fortunate to conduct PR campaigns for the Yamaha Corporation of America, the world’s largest musical instrument manufacturing company, among other clients, and I now plan to put my PR prowess to work as I attempt to lobby Congress to pass a law designating National Anthem Day, March 3, as an official federal observance akin to Flag Day and Columbus Day under Title 36 of the United States Code.

I used to tell my students that the skills they learned in my history courses would serve them well no matter what profession they entered. Little did I know that I, too, would get the opportunity to walk the walk.

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Marc Ferris, account manager at Giles Communications, is the author of Star-Spangled Banner: The Unlikely Story of America’s National Anthem (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014).