Dale Carnegie ( ; spelled Carnagey until c. 1922; November 24, 1888 – November 1, 1955) was an American writer and teacher of courses in self-improvement, salesmanship,

corporate training Training and development involves improving Organizational effectiveness, the effectiveness of organizations and the individuals and teams within them. Training may be viewed as being related to immediate changes in effectiveness via organized in ...

, public speaking, and interpersonal skills. Born into poverty on a farm in

Missouri Missouri (''see #Etymology and pronunciation, pronunciation'') is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. Ranking List of U.S. states and territories by area, 21st in land area, it border ...

, he was the author of '' How to Win Friends and Influence People'' (1936), a bestseller that remains popular today. He also wrote '' How to Stop Worrying and Start Living'' (1948), '' Lincoln the Unknown'' (1932), and several other books. One of the core ideas in his books is that it is possible to change other people's behavior by changing one's behavior towards them.

Biography

Dale Carnegie was born November 24, 1888, on a farm in Maryville, Missouri. He was the second son of farmers Amanda Elizabeth Harbison (1858–1939) and her husband James William Carnagey (1852–1941). Carnegie grew up around Bedison, Missouri, southeast of Maryville and attended rural Rose Hill and Harmony one room schools. Carnegie would develop a longstanding friendship with another Maryville author, Homer Croy. In 1904, at age 16, his family moved to a farm in

Warrensburg, Missouri Warrensburg is a city in and the county seat of Johnson County, Missouri, United States. Its population was 20,313 at the 2020 census. The Warrensburg micropolitan statistical area consists of Johnson County. The city is a college town, as it is ...

. As a youth, he enjoyed speaking in public and joined his school's debate team. Carnegie said he had to get up at 3 a.m. to feed the pigs and milk his parents' cows before going to school. During high school, he grew interested in the speeches at the various

Chautauqua Chautauqua ( ) is an adult education and social movement in the United States that peaked in popularity in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Chautauqua assemblies expanded and spread throughout rural America until the mid-1920s. The Cha ...

assemblies. He completed his high school education in 1906. He attended the State Teachers College in Warrensburg, graduating in 1908. His first job after college was selling correspondence courses to ranchers. He moved on to selling

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, and

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for Armour & Company. He was successful to the point of making his sales territory of South Omaha, Nebraska, the national leader for the firm. After saving $200, Dale Carnegie quit sales in 1911 in order to pursue a lifelong dream of becoming a

lecturer. He ended up instead attending the

American Academy of Dramatic Arts The American Academy of Dramatic Arts (AADA) is a Private college, private drama school with two locations, one in New York City and one in Los Angeles. The academy offers an associate degree in occupational studies and teaches drama and related ...

in New York, but found little success as an actor, though it is written that he played the role of Dr. Hartley in a road show of '' Polly of the Circus''. When the production ended, he returned to New York, living at the

YMCA YMCA, sometimes regionally called the Y, is a worldwide youth organisation based in Geneva, Switzerland, with more than 64 million beneficiaries in 120 countries. It has nearly 90,000 staff, some 920,000 volunteers and 12,000 branches w ...

on 125th Street. There he got the idea to teach public speaking, and he persuaded the YMCA manager to allow him to instruct a class in return for 80% of the net proceeds. In his first session, he had run out of material. Improvising, he suggested that students speak about "something that made them angry", and discovered that the technique made speakers unafraid to address a public audience. From this 1912 debut, the Dale Carnegie Course evolved. Carnegie had tapped into the average American's desire to have more self-confidence, and by 1914, he was earning $500 (about $ in ) every week. During

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

he served in the U.S. Army spending the time at Camp Upton.Dale Carnegie, Author, Is Dead
''NY times''. November 2, 1955. Retrieved on 2011-09-10. His draft card noted he had filed for

conscientious objector A conscientious objector is an "individual who has claimed the right to refuse to perform military service" on the grounds of freedom of conscience or religion. The term has also been extended to objecting to working for the military–indu ...

status and had a loss of a forefinger. By 1916, Dale conducted a sold out lecture at

Carnegie Hall Carnegie Hall ( ) is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. It is at 881 Seventh Avenue (Manhattan), Seventh Avenue, occupying the east side of Seventh Avenue between 56th Street (Manhattan), 56th and 57th Street (Manhattan), 57t ...

, which influenced his decision in 1919 to change the spelling of his last name in honor of the steel magnate,

Andrew Carnegie Andrew Carnegie ( , ; November 25, 1835August 11, 1919) was a Scottish-American industrialist and philanthropist. Carnegie led the expansion of the History of the iron and steel industry in the United States, American steel industry in the late ...

, and easier for others to remember. Carnegie's first collection of his writings was ''Public Speaking: a Practical Course for Business Men'' (1926), later entitled '' Public Speaking and Influencing Men in Business'' (1932). In 1936,

Simon & Schuster Simon & Schuster LLC (, ) is an American publishing house owned by Kohlberg Kravis Roberts since 2023. It was founded in New York City in 1924, by Richard L. Simon and M. Lincoln Schuster. Along with Penguin Random House, Hachette Book Group US ...

published ''How to Win Friends and Influence People''. The book was a bestseller from its debut. By the time of Carnegie's death, the book had sold five million copies in 31 languages, and there had been 450,000 graduates of his Dale Carnegie Institute. It has been stated in the book that he had critiqued over 150,000 speeches in his participation in the adult education movement of the time.

Personal life

His first marriage ended in divorce in August 1931. On November 5, 1944, he married his former secretary, Dorothy Price Vanderpool (1913–1998), who also had been divorced. Vanderpool had a daughter, Rosemary, from her first marriage. She and Carnegie had a daughter, Donna Dale. Dorothy ran the Carnegie company following Dale's death. Carnegie died of

Hodgkin lymphoma Hodgkin lymphoma (HL) is a type of lymphoma in which cancer originates from a specific type of white blood cell called lymphocytes, where multinucleated Reed–Sternberg cells (RS cells) are present in the lymph nodes. The condition was named a ...

on November 1, 1955, at his home in Forest Hills, New York. He was buried in the Belton cemetery in

Cass County, Missouri Cass County is a county located in the western part of the U.S. state of Missouri and is part of the Kansas City metropolitan area. As of the 2020 census, the population was 107,824. Its county seat is Harrisonville; however, the county co ...

Books

* 1915: ''Art of Public Speaking'', with Joseph Berg Esenwein. * 1920: ''Public Speaking: the Standard Course of the United Y. M. C. A. Schools''. * 1926: ''Public Speaking: a Practical Course for Business Men''. Later editions and updates changed the name of the book several times: '' Public Speaking and Influencing Men in Business'' (1937 revised), ''How to Develop Self-Confidence and Influence People by Public Speaking'' (1956) and ''Public Speaking for Success'' (2005). * 1932: '' Lincoln the Unknown''. * 1934: ''Little Known Facts About Well Known People''. * 1936: '' How to Win Friends and Influence People''. * 1937: ''Five Minute Biographies''. * 1944: ''Dale Carnegie's Biographical round-up''. * 1948: '' How to Stop Worrying and Start Living''. * 1959: ''Dale Carnegie's Scrapbook: a Treasury of the Wisdom of the Ages''. A selection of Dale Carnegie's writings edited by Dorothy Carnegie. * 1962: ''The Quick and Easy Way to Effective Speaking''. (by Dorothy Carnegie, based upon Dale Carnegie's own notes and ideas)

Booklets

(most given out in Dale Carnegie Courses) * 1938: ''How to Get Ahead in the World Today'' * 1936: ''The Little Golden Book'' (later renamed ''The Golden Book'', lists basics from ''HTWFIP'' and ''HTSWSL'') * 1946: ''How to Put Magic in the Magic Formula'' * 1947: ''A Quick and Easy Way to Learn to Speak in Public''. (later combined as ''Speak More Effectively'', 1979) * 1952: ''How to Make Our Listeners Like Us''. (later combined as ''Speak More Effectively'', 1979) * 1959: ''How to Save Time and Get Better Results in Conferences'' (later renamed ''Meetings: Quicker & Better Results'') * 1960: ''How to Remember Names'' (later renamed as ''Remember Names'') * 1965: ''The Little Recognized Secret of Success'' (later renamed ''Live Enthusiastically'') * 1979: ''Apply Your Problem Solving Know How''

References

External links