On the Campus of UCM at Warrensburg, MO, now located East of the Alumni Chapel.
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| Dr. Diemer, UCM President, Awarding Dale Carnegie an Honorary Doctorate Degree from his alma mater. |
By ALYSSA CLIFTON (WARRENSBURG, Mo., digitalBURG)— Students, faculty, staff and Carnegians gathered in the quad of the University of Central Missouri Wednesday to watch the unveiling of the new bronze bust of Dale Carnegie. Carnegie is a UCM alumnus who created a self-improvement training course and wrote…
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Dale Carnegie visits his alma mater, the University of Central Missouri (CMSC) about 1951-52 and surprises a Warrensburg Group who had just completed his course. This photo taken at the locally famous Riggles Restaurant in Warrensburg, Missouri In the photo can be found H. H. and Ida Mae Russell, Earl D, and Janie Russell Uhler, Dr. T. Reed and Virginia Maxson, Hubert and Bonna Del Herrold Fisher, Helen Gilbert, Dale Carnegie, Addie Flannery, Standing behind Dorothy Bailey Preston, in the white suit coat, is Clifford Bailey, Dorothys' first husband. So we know the picture is before 1953 because that is when Cliff died. |
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| Dale Carnegie Home When Attending College in Warrensburg, Missouri about 2.3 miles south of the campus on Highway 13 Betty Marr, Johnson County Missouri Historical Society lived in the home after Dale and she provided the pictures. |
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| Dale Carnegie Home When Attending College in Warrensburg, Missouri about 2.3 miles south of the campus on Highway 13.He tied his mule or horse to some trees that are just south and west of Clark Street at Maguire St.Betty Marr, Johnson County Missouri Historical Society lived in the home after Dale and she provided these pictures.  in Warrensburg, MO According to Betty Marr from the Johnson County Missouri Historical Museum. Her family lived in the Carnegie home on South 13 highway many years after the Carnegie's. These trees are on the SW corner of Maguire (13) and Clark St. |
Dale Carnegie Biography by A&E
How to succeed
Folksy tips from the father of self-help in America
Self-Help Messiah: Dale Carnegie and Success in Modern America.
By Steven Watts.
RUNNING US Steel at the turn of the 20th century, Charles Schwab was perhaps the first person in America to earn a salary of $1m a year. What made him so successful? Was he a genius? No. Did he know more about steel than other people? Certainly not. So how did he get ahead? Schwab knew how “to make people like him,” observed Dale Carnegie. With charm, confidence and a good smile, anyone can climb the ladder of success.
This was the promise of Carnegie’s landmark book, “How to Win Friends and Influence People”. Published in 1936, amid the struggle of the Great Depression, it was an instant hit, selling out 17 editions in its first year. “Be hearty in approbation and lavish in praise,” Carnegie advised. Riches and happiness will follow.
Carnegie’s crusade of personal reinvention “helped redefine the American dream and plotted a new pathway by which to get there,” writes Steven Watts, a historian at the University of Missouri, in an insightful and comprehensive new biography. Carnegie got rich selling a brand of homespun wisdom (“Make the other person feel important”), but his message of self-presentation helped people navigate the rules of a changing workplace. In a modern consumer economy Victorian virtues of thrift, self-denial and a strong moral character had little value. Meanwhile a new figure had arrived on the scene: the white-collar executive, who spent his days juggling meetings and managing bureaucracy. If success came from knowing how to deal with people, Carnegie—in folksy, brisk and inspiring language (“watch the magic work”)—offered a template for action.
Born into a poor family in rural Missouri in 1888, Carnegie learned many of these lessons the hard way. His parents were pious, hard-working and broke. When he arrived at university he was rough-edged and insecure, and got teased about his sugar-bowl ears. But after hearing a couple of speechifiers tell their mesmerising rags-to-riches tales, he threw himself into public speaking, eager to make his name.
A stint peddling meat in South Dakota gave him insight into the evolving role of a salesman in an age of consumer abundance. Sales involved not only meeting the practical needs of consumers, but also promising a better life. Carnegie found that a more artful form of salesmanship—which included establishing personal relationships with people—worked best.
A hayseed with a Midwestern twang, Carnegie arrived in New York in his 20s with the usual mix of big dreams and shallow pockets. He craved the life of an actor, but settled for teaching evening public-speaking classes at a small YMCA in Manhattan. His tips for getting ahead popularised new psychological theories about human motivation and the unconscious. When dealing with people, Carnegie would say, “We are not dealing with creatures of logic. We are dealing with creatures of emotion.” His classes became so popular that he soon codified his lessons into a successful national business.
Some critics saw his approach to empathy as cynical, as if all kindness was lubrication for personal advancement. Others criticised his flimsy grasp of politics and economics (he was often “startlingly naive”, writes Mr Watts). Yet Carnegie operated with a Midwesterner’s sincerity, believing people could improve, mistakes could be fixed and even names could be changed. His own had been Carnagey before he tweaked it to sound like Andrew Carnegie, a powerful industrialist.
With the end of the second world war America entered a new era of prosperity. But material advantages did not yield personal fulfilment. Once again, Carnegie harnessed the Zeitgeist with another blockbuster book: “How to Stop Worrying and Start Living” (1948). In snappy prose, he insisted that the way ahead was to seize the moment, letting go of “dead yesterdays” and “unborn tomorrows”. Readers were pushed to pursue meaningful work and to try to please others. “When you are good to others, you are best to yourself.”
Carnegie was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and died in 1955, aged 66. But his views about success live on. More than 8m students have graduated from his business-communications class, including Lee Iacocca and Warren Buffett in the 1950s. “How to Make Friends and Influence People” has sold over 30m copies worldwide; it still sells in the six figures annually. But Carnegie’s biggest legacy is as the “father of the self-help movement”, writes Mr Watts. Finding personal satisfaction is no easy thing, Carnegie acknowledged. But it is always best to begin with a smile.
Winning Friends and Influencing People
Dale Carnegie proved that nice guys can finish first.
Todd Eliason
Act enthusiastic, smile, become genuinely interested in other people, and don’t criticize, condemn or complain. When Dale Carnegie put those simple principles in a book called How to Win Friends and Influence People, he not only became a guru to millions of people the world over, he made publishing history. Since its first publication in 1936, the book has sold more than 15 million copies, is one of the all-time best-sellers, and is still popular today. Before there was an entire industry devoted to self-improvement, there was Dale Carnegie and his desire to let people know their success depended largely on their ability to win friends and influence people.
Missouri Values
In 1888, Dale "Carnagey" Carnegie was born into a life of hard times, hard work and failure. The Carnagey's farmed an area in northwest Missouri that frequently flooded, and foreclosure was a constant threat. But Dale’s parents made it clear his future would be different. The driving force in the Carnagey household was Dale’s mother, Amanda. A dynamic personality, she served as his mentor and personal-improvement coach. She saw great potential in his abilities and made it clear his destiny would not be the farmlands of Missouri. She knew the importance of confidence, good speaking skills and education, and encouraged Dale to give speeches in church. At 16, Dale enrolled in the Missouri State Teachers College (today University of Central Missouri) in Warrensburg, Missouri. To save money, he lived at home and helped his father with the chores every morning before putting on his only suit and walking to school. After his junior year, Dale heard there was big money in sales, landing a job in South Dakota with Armour & Company earning $17 a week. But when he was offered a management job, he turned it down, and decided to leave the Midwest for the big city lights of New York. His dream was to become a novelist, working days selling Packard cars and trucks and writing at night. After struggling through his first book, which he declared a disaster, Carnegie decided he wasn’t cut out to be a novelist. At 24, it was time for self-reflection. He decided to do the next thing that came natural: teach public speaking.
Finding His Niche
In 1912, Carnegie got a job at the YMCA in Harlem teaching public speaking at night school. With no curriculum, he improvised, bringing students to the front of class to speak while he and the rest of the group offered encouragement and advice. Soon Dale Carnegie’s courses were filled to capacity with people looking to conquer a fear many people say is greater than that of death—that of public speaking.
Carnegie said his courses were designed to train adults, through experience, to think on their feet and express their ideas with more clarity, effectiveness and poise. But as time passed, he realized these people also needed training in the art of getting along with others in everyday business and social situations. Industry was exploding; small businesses were turning into large enterprises. And along with this growth came a new breed of businessman: the middle manager who needed what Carnegie taught.
Carnegie’s own research revealed about 15 percent of one’s fi nancial success is due to technical knowledge, and about 85 percent is due to skill in human engineering, personality and the ability to lead people. “One can always hire technical ability, but the person who has technical knowledge plus the ability to express ideas, to assume leadership and to arouse enthusiasm among people—that person is headed for higher earning power,” he said.
Putting Principles on Paper
Teaching courses on human relations, Carnegie searched in vain for a working handbook on the subject. So he started writing one for use in his own courses.
In preparation, he pored over newspaper columns, magazine articles, the writings of the old philosophers and countless biographies of great leaders to see how they dealt with people. At the same time, Carnegie started compiling a list of the core principles he taught in his courses, such as don’t criticize, condemn or complain, among others.
"It takes character and self-control to be understanding and forgiving."
From this material he prepared a short talk, “How to Win Friends and Influence People.” For years, he gave this talk in his courses, urging his students to test it in their business and social settings and to report back at the next class. Carnegie said his students loved these assignments and were fascinated by the idea of working in the first and only laboratory of human relationships for adults.
What started as a few principles on a notecard grew to leaflets, then to a series of booklets, each principle expanding in size and scope. And after 15 years of experimentation and research, his book was ready.
Skills for Better Living
The timing for How to Win Friends and Influence People couldn’t have been better. Following the Stock Market crash in 1929, businesses and factories were shutting their doors and millions were out of work. Carnegie offered people a way to differentiate themselves by learning additional skills that would either open doors to new opportunities or keep them from being laid off.
Both Carnegie and publisher Simon & Schuster had modest expectations for the book, printing just 5,000 copies. Then an executive who had previously taken Carnegie’s course came up with the idea of selling the book to his seminar graduates.
Soon How to Win Friends and Influence People was flying off the shelves, selling an astounding 5,000 copies a day. The book moved to the top of the best-seller list and remained on the list for an unprecedented 10 years. Dale Carnegie had provided a road map to show men and women from all walks of life how to connect with people and to influence others with dignity and respect.
Although he had critics who thought the book was filled with simplistic hyperbole, these attitudes were shared mostly by literary scholars—not mainstream America. The book sold so well it was translated into 30 languages and became a best-seller around the world. Soon “How to Win Friends and Influence People” became a catch phrase, even used in cartoons and lampoons.
Humility in Success
All of this new found fame and fortune was a little overwhelming for the farm boy from Missouri. When his first royalty check for $90,000 arrived in the mail, he left it on his desk for a few days until his secretary prodded him to take it to the bank and deposit it.
With his success came more income-producing opportunities, including a syndicated column that appeared in more than 70 newspapers. He also had his own radio program broadcast nationwide.
Dale Carnegie was recognized throughout the world, filling giant concert halls with people looking to learn from the master teacher on human relations. His humility and Midwestern appeal made him a crowd favorite.
"Dale Carnegie offered skills that would either open doors or keep people from being laid off."
In the years following World War II, Carnegie penned another book, titledHow to Stop Worrying and Start Living, which reached No. 2 on the best-seller list. Carnegie spent most of his time at home in Queens, N.Y., with his wife, Dorothy, whom he met on one of his speaking tours years earlier. The couple also bought a large farm near his boyhood home in Missouri. Then, in 1951, Dorothy gave birth to a daughter, Donna Dale. At 63, Carnegie was a very wealthy man and a father for the first time.
It was just a few years later when Carnegie started to grow frail and began to forget things. In the summer of 1955 Dale returned one final time to his beloved Missouri, where he was awarded an honorary degree from his old college in Warrensburg. Just three months later, Dale Carnegie died at the age of 66.
Humble Even in Death
For his final resting place, Carnegie had chosen the place he was born, the farm country of northwest Missouri. Shunning the spotlight even in death, it was Carnegie’s wish that not much be made of his passing. His gravestone simply reads “Dale Carnegie, 1888-1955.”
Long after his death, his legacy lives on. Carnegie’s work continues to attract some of the most successful people in the world. Auto executive Lee Iacocca took the course, as did legendary investor Warren Buffett and Domino’s Pizza founder Tom Monaghan. They are among thousands who take his course each year. And 70 years after it was published, How to Win Friends and Influence People continues to reach millions who want to learn the principles that can help them live better lives.
Dale Carnegie was born November 24, 1888 in Maryville, Missouri. His family later moved to Warrensburg, Missouri and he attended what is known today as University of Central Missouri. His parents, Elizabeth and J.W. Carnagey, bought a farm on the outskirts of Belton in 1910. Dale Carnegie was a frequent visitor to Belton and called it his hometown. (He changed the spelling of his last name because friends, in the East, kept spelling it wrong and rather than embarrass them by correcting their spelling he just changed the spelling.)
Dale Carnegie started as a Missouri farm boy and went on to be listed in "Life" magazine as one of the "100 Most Important Americans of the 20th Century." His book, "How to Win Friends and Influence People," has sold more than 30 million copies worldwide and was identified by "American Heritage" as one of the 10 works that shaped American culture.
Mr. Carnegie was married to Dorothy Price Vanderpool in 1940 and together they had one daughter, Donna Dale Carnegie. He died of Hodgkin's disease November 1, 1955. He is buried in the Belton cemetery beside his daughter and parents.
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Even in 1936, Carnegie’s network of friends was unparalleled. Franklin D. Roosevelt, Clark Gable, Charles Schwab of steel manufacturing fame, Thomas Edison, Mary Pickford and Guglielmo Marconi - radio pioneer.
Some of his famous quotes....and they are still relevant today.
"You'll never achieve real success unless you like what you're doing."
Dale Carnegie "Flaming enthusiasm backed by horse sense and persistence, is the quality that most frequently makes for success."
Dale Carnegie
"There are four ways, and only four ways, in which we have contact with the world. We are evaluated and classified by these four contacts:
what we do, how we look, what we say, and how we say it."
Dale Carnegie
"Would you sell both your eyes for a million dollars…or your two legs…or your hands…or your hearing? Add up what you do have, and you'll find you won't sell them for all the gold in the world. The best things in life are yours, if you can appreciate them."
Dale Carnegie
"The successful man will profit from his mistakes and try again in a different way."
Dale Carnegie
"Don't be afraid to give your best to what seemingly are small jobs. Every time you conquer one it makes you that much stronger. If you do the little jobs well, the big ones will tend to take care of themselves."
Dale Carnegie
"When fate hands us a lemon, let's try to make lemonade."
Dale Carnegie
"If you want to gather honey, don't kick over the beehive. If only the people who worry about their liabilities would think about the riches they do possess, they would stop worrying."
Dale Carnegie
"You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you."
Dale Carnegie
"If you can't sleep, then get up and do something instead of lying there worrying. It's the worry that gets you, not the lack of sleep."
Dale Carnegie
Carnegie, Dale (kär`nəgē, kärnā`gē), 1888–1955, American lecturer and writer on self-improvement, b. Maryville, Mo., as Dale Carnagey; grad. State Normal School Number Two, Warrensburg, Mo. (1908). After stints as a salesman and actor, he began teaching (1912) public speaking in New York City at a YMCA. His popular classes eventually became the Dale Carnegie Course, a pioneering training program in communication and interpersonal relations for people in sales, business management, and other fields. Carnegie wrote How to Win Friends and Influence People (1936), a runaway bestseller; How to Stop Worrying and Start Living (1948); and other books. He also penned newspaper columns and had a radio program.
The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia® Copyright © 2007, Columbia University Press. Licensed from Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.www.cc.columbia.edu/cu/cup/
Warren Buffet and Dale Carnegie Connection
1951: Buffett takes a Dale Carnegie public speaking course. Using what he learnt, he began to teach a night class at the University of Nebraska, "Investment Principles". The students were twice his age [he was only 21 at the time].
        Quick Facts
Best Known ForDale Carnegie is the author of How To Win Friends and Influence People, one of the bestselling self-help books of all time..JPG) Dale Carnegie biographySynopsis
Dale Carnegie was born November 24, 1888, Maryville, MO. Born poor, he worked as a traveling salesman before teaching public speaking at a YMCA. He was soon lecturing to packed houses and collected his lectures into books. His How To Win Friends and Influence People won him a national following and the Dale Carnegie Institute established chapters throughout the country. He died in 1955.
Early Life
Writer; lecturer. Born as Dale Carnagey on November 24, 1888, in Maryville, Missouri. His parents, James William and Amanda Elizabeth Carnagey, were impoverished farmers. When Carnegie was in middle school, his family moved to Warrensburg, Missouri. As a boy, Carnegie was unskilled in athletics but learned that he could still make friends and earn respect because he had a way with words. In high school, he frequently attended Chautauqua assemblies at Pertle Springs, MO Pertle Springs Link These events brought entertainment to rural communities throughout the country and featured popular speakers, musicians, entertainers and preachers. Carnegie was so inspired by a number of the speakers he heard at these gatherings that he decided to join the school debate team, where he became a skillful orator.
After graduating from high school in 1906, Carnegie attended the local State Teachers College in Warrensburg. His family was too poor to afford the $1 a day it cost for room and board, so Carnegie continued to live at home while riding to and from school daily on horseback. He took advantage of these solitary rides to practice reciting speeches and fine-tuning his oratory style. Carnegie frequently entered intercollegiate public speaking competitions and won the majority of contests in which he participated. His prowess as a public speaker was such that other students offered to pay him to train them. After leaving college in 1908, Carnegie took a job as a traveling salesman for the International Correspondence Schools, based out of Alliance, Nebraska. He then took another sales job for the meatpacking business Armour and Company. By 1911, Carnegie had saved up $500, which was enough to quit his job, move to New York City and try to make it as an actor.
Carnegie briefly studied at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and then landed the leading role of Dr. Hartley in a traveling production of Polly of the Circus. However, he hated the experience and quickly decided that a life in the theater was not for him. Later, Carnegie enlisted in the United States Army and served for a little over a year at Camp Upton on Long Island during World War I. After his discharge from the military, Carnegie was hired as the business manager of a traveling lecture course taught by Lowell Thomas, the writer and broadcaster best known for his coverage of Lawrence of Arabia.
Public Speaking Classes
At the conclusion of the Lowell Thomas tour, Carnegie returned to New York and considered what to do next with his life. He recalled how students had offered to pay him money to teach them public speaking and realized that this skill was what helped him succeed as a salesman, so Carnegie had the idea to teach public speaking classes for adults.
He successfully pitched the idea to the Y.M.C.A, which provided him a space to begin night classes in return for a cut of the profits.
The classes proved an immediate success. Focused on the everyday needs of business people, Carnegie taught his students how to interview well, make persuasive presentations and forge positive relationships. His students would often come to class each week with stories of how they had put the skills they learned the previous week to successful use in their workplaces. Within two years, the courses had achieved such popularity that Carnegie moved them out of the Y.M.C.A. and founded his own Dale Carnegie Institute to accommodate the growing numbers of students. In 1913, he published his first book, Public Speaking and Influencing Men of Business, using it as a textbook for his courses. It was shortly after the book came out that Carnegie changed his name from its original spelling, "Carnagey," to "Carnegie." A brilliant, if perhaps somewhat disingenuous, business tactic, the new spelling made people associate his classes and books with the storied Carnegie family to whom he bore no relation.
Over the next two decades, Carnegie gradually refined his curriculum to better meet the needs of his professional students. He perceived that the most successful business people in any given industry were not those with the most technical know-how, but rather those with the best people skills. His students needed to learn more than effective public speaking techniques; they needed to learn the social and communication skills that distinguished the leaders of all industries. As he set out to teach his students these crucial skills, Carnegie realized that no textbook existed on the subject. In 1931, after years of intense research that included reading hundreds biographies to learn how the world's greatest leaders achieved their success, Carnegie published just such a book: How to Win Friends and Influence People. Despite its modest initial print run of 5,000 copies, the book became a mammoth bestseller. Carnegie's book, like his classes, struck a chord with a population hungry for self-improvement, selling nearly 5 million copies during his lifetime while being translated into every major language.
Impact on Adult Education and Self-Improvement
Propelled by the success of How to Win Friends and Influence People, the Dale Carnegie Institute exploded in popularity. During Carnegie's lifetime, the institute expanded into 750 American cities as well as 15 foreign countries. In 1953, Carnegie moved the institute's headquarters into a converted five-story brownstone warehouse in Manhattan. By the time of his death in 1955, an estimated 450,000 people had taken his classes across the globe. While focusing on his lecturing, Carnegie also wrote biographies, motivated by his belief that the best way to learn the secrets of success was to read up on history's most successful people. In 1932, Carnegie published a biography of Abraham Lincoln, Lincoln the Unknown, and he later published several compilations of brief biographical sketches: Little Known Facts about Well Known People (1934), Five Minute Biographies (1937) and Biographical Roundup (1945). He published another self-improvement book, How to Stop Worrying and Start Living, in 1945.
After his first marriage ended in divorce in 1931, Carnegie married Dorothy Price Vanderpool in 1944. She played a vital role in the expansion of the Dale Carnegie Institute, specifically helping the institute to develop courses and programs geared toward the emerging class of professional young women.
Carnegie died of Hodgkin's disease on November 1, 1955, at the age of 66.
A pioneer in the fields of adult education and self-improvement, Carnegie's books and courses inspired an entire genre of nonfiction writing. Despite an explosion of newer self-help books written over recent decades, How to Win Friends and Influence People remains extraordinarily popular, still relevant and useful to professional men and women decades after its initial publishing. Since Carnegie's death, the Dale Carnegie Institute has continued to expand and is currently a highly respected business training firm operating in 75 countries. Although he wrote thousands of pages of books and gave hours upon hours of lectures, Carnegie's essential message on how to live a successful life can be summed up by his two most fundamental maxims: "Forget yourself; do things for others" and "Cooperate with the inevitable."
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Dale Carnegie 1920
"Dale Breckenridge Carnegie (originally Carnagey until 1922 and possibly somewhat later) (November 24, 1888 – November 1, 1955) was an American writer, lecturer, and the developer of famous courses in self-improvement, salesmanship, corporate training, public speaking, and interpersonal skills. Born into poverty on a farm in Missouri, he was the author of How to Win Friends and Influence People (1936), a massive 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 reaction to them." - wikipedia.com In 1920, Carengie was traveling to Europe on a lecture tour. His topic was, "General Allenby in the Holy Land." On his passport application he spells his name, "Carnagey." |
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| Dale Carnegie, educated at UCM Warrensburg, MO |
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| James William Carnagey, Father of Dale Breckenridge Carnegie(Carnagey) |
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| Elizabeth Amanda "Mary" Breckenridge Carnegy, mother of Dale Carnegie |
Dorothy Carnegie Rivkin, 85, Ex-Dale Carnegie Chief, Dies
Dorothy Carnegie Rivkin, an author and instructor who developed the Dale Carnegie Training company into a worldwide operation, died on Thursday after a long illness. She was 85 and lived in Forest Hills Gardens, Queens.
Mrs. Carnegie Rivkin, a native of Tulsa, Okla., was chairwoman of Dale Carnegie Training. In the 1940's and 50's she was married to the founder of the company, Dale Carnegie, who wrote the classic American self-help book ''How to Win Friends and Influence People.'' Mrs. Carnegie took control of company operations after Mr. Carnegie's death in 1955 and developed the business into a multinational one with offices in 70 countries, 5 million graduates and $187 million in annual sales.
With her strawberry blond hair, gleaming smile and rich Oklahoma twang -- Mrs. Carnegie was a student of Mr. Carnegie as well as his wife -- she proved as big a success in business as he was in motivational speaking. Though contemporaries in the 1950's wondered whether she had what it took to continue Mr. Carnegie's quintessentially enigmatic enterprise, she scoffed at such skepticism. She told a reporter in 1973 that she immediately took over the operations ''so that I have no time to sit and whittle and spit.''
Mrs. Carnegie Rivkin, a native of Tulsa, Okla., was chairwoman of Dale Carnegie Training. In the 1940's and 50's she was married to the founder of the company, Dale Carnegie, who wrote the classic American self-help book ''How to Win Friends and Influence People.'' Mrs. Carnegie took control of company operations after Mr. Carnegie's death in 1955 and developed the business into a multinational one with offices in 70 countries, 5 million graduates and $187 million in annual sales.
With her strawberry blond hair, gleaming smile and rich Oklahoma twang -- Mrs. Carnegie was a student of Mr. Carnegie as well as his wife -- she proved as big a success in business as he was in motivational speaking. Though contemporaries in the 1950's wondered whether she had what it took to continue Mr. Carnegie's quintessentially enigmatic enterprise, she scoffed at such skepticism. She told a reporter in 1973 that she immediately took over the operations ''so that I have no time to sit and whittle and spit.''
Even before she met its creator, she had become an early devotee of the Carnegie approach to self-improvement. His book was first published in 1936 and took America by storm with its simple, upbeat message. Even the most retiring people can learn to wow a crowd, he wrote. Look people in the eye, shake hands firmly, flash a winning smile and remember names. Never complain or blame other people.
In the early 1940's, she was Dorothy Price Vanderpool, a divorced mother with a baby daughter to support because of what she called an ''unfortunate teen-aged marriage.'' She took a Carnegie course at a Y.M.C.A. in Tulsa and afterward credited the skills she acquired for the jump she made from stenographer in the Gulf Oil Corporation's accounting department to a senior secretary in the executive suite. She also became president of Tulsa's Young Republicans Club.
Her improvement so impressed Carnegie people that the company offered her a job in New York. She became Mr. Carnegie's secretary in January 1944 and, several months later, his second wife. He later made her his business partner.
Following his style, she collected anecdotes and how-to case histories for a book she wrote, ''How to Help Your Husband Get Ahead in his Social and Business Life,'' published in 1953. Among the homespun advice she offered wives eager to please their husbands were such aphorisms as ''Share his interests and ideals'' and ''Try some intelligent listening. Be a sounding board or a wailing wall.''
But Mrs. Carnegie put business before her personal writing and teaching interests. She once started the Dorothy Carnegie Course, a workshop for women, by women, in contrast to the male-centered Dale Carnegie program. It never took off financially, however, and her business instincts prevailed over her desire to offer a women-only alternative. She did preside over a sharp rise in the number of women taking the regular course.
Her genius was to transform Dale Carnegie Training into a staple of corporate America. She once contended that 400 of the Fortune 500 companies sent employees to study at the company. It became a right of passage for young executives who sought to develop the confidence to present themselves well in public settings. Companies, moreover, paid the enrollment fees, which can now surpass $1,000 for a two-week session.
Graduates were often the best advertisement. The chicken magnate Frank Perdue attended, as did Mary Kay Ash of Mary Kay cosmetics. So did Lee A. Iacocca, the former chief of the Chrysler Corporation.
''For the first few years of my life I was an introvert, a shrinking violet,'' the sometimes brash auto executive wrote in his autobiography, ''Iacocca.'' ''But that was before I took a course in public speaking at the Dale Carnegie Institute.'' Even the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders spruced up their smiles with the help of Carnegie teachers.
Mrs. Carnegie had a casual working style. She vowed that employees would never find her sitting idly behind a desk. She dictated letters from the porch of her home in Forest Hills Gardens and ran meetings by telephone from her ranch in the Black Hills of Wyoming. She decorated her office with a bronze Philip La Verne conference table, an expensive statement of taste in the late 1960's.
Mrs. Carnegie remarried in 1976, to David Rivkin, also of Tulsa. She retired from active management of the closely held company in 1978 in favor of her son-in-law, J. Oliver Crom, though she remained chairwoman.
She is survived by Mr. Rivkin and her daughter, Donna Dale Carnegie of Lake Oswego, Ore. Another daughter, Rosemary Crom, died earlier. She is also survived by three grandchildren, seven great-grandchildren and three stepchildren.
Dale Carnegie holds the arm of a nervous student who struggles to speak at a microphone in 1938.
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The home of Dale Carnegie in Harmony Church, Missouri.
Dale chose not to follow his parents in farming
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Dale Carnegie was a man whose world famous public speaking program and book has helped millions . When he discovered how to overcome the one greatest fear known to man, not death, but talking in front of a group of people, Carnegie became immensely successful . Even though he wrote in the 1930s, his ideas still have great relevance for those who wish to improve their lives today . Who was this man, and what is his life story ?
Dale Carnagey was born on November 24, 1888 in Harmony Church, Missouri, near Maryville. His father, James, claimed Andrew Carnegie, the famous steel industrialist and philanthropist but this has not been proven. Dale himself never claimed any relationship, it was done for recognition when he was starting out. Growing up on the farm, the Carnagey family experienced occasional hardships due to the flooding of the nearby 102 river. Dale grew up feeling ashamed of his family's poverty, but always admired his mother's strong faith. His mother was a strong supporter of Carry Nation's temperance movement, and Dale's first experience in public speaking came with mother who gained a reputation against the evils of alcohol. His mother often gave to charity, even though the family itself was in need of charity. He admired his father for his perseverance in the hard lot that was a farmer's life. His father even considered suicide as farming debts mounted. Dale lost his left forefinger while playing in an abandoned house as a child. As a high school student, he was deeply impressed by a speaker for the Chautauqua movement, an early form of correspondence education, who inspired him to seek a life other than farming.
Maryville, Missouri
His family moved Warrensburg, Missouri in 1904 so Dale could attend the teacher's college there tuition free. dale rode to the college on horseback and came home to do his farm chores . Dale asked a girl student to go out on a buggy ride with him, but she turned him down. dale was convinced that this was due to his poverty and swore to himself that he would become rich and famous, a vow he kept. At college, he encountered the ideas of Darwin and began to question his religious faith.
Dale Carnegie Gets His Inspiration from Pertle Springs
After watching a Chautauqua speaker give a lecture in Warrensburg at the Pertle Springs Resort, Carnegie adopted the man's speaking style and mannerisms with great success. Dale became a popular student on campus and give public speaking lessons to other students.
one of the many products sold by Armour & Co at the turn of the century
In 1908, Dale left college. He did not graduate from the teachers college ( Warrensburg State Teachers College, the year he died, the school granted him an honorary degree, it is now called UCM University of Central Missouri) due to failing Latin, but had decided at this point he did not wish to be a teacher. America was entering a boom period, and salesmen were in demand. He headed to Denver and his first job after college was selling correspondence courses, however, he only made one sale and began to question his sales approach and quit. Carnegie then decided to seek a job as a cattle tender in Omaha, Nebraska and rode there from Denver in a cattle car. He found a job as a salesman for Armour & Co and attended a month long training program. dale became the top salesman in his Dakota territory. He was offered a management position, but turned it down and decided to give up a sales career and study acting in New York City.
Dale Carnegie teaching a ' break-through' class in 1932. These cathartic sessions are usually session five in a Dale Carnegie course, where participants vow to 'get things done.' Carnegie used many of the lessons from his acting days for role playing, speaking and elocution in his courses to expand the students comfort zone beyond their everyday range.
In New York, Dale attended the famous American Academy of the Dramatic Arts. Edward G. Robinson entered the school in 1911, one year after Dale. the school emphasized natural acting as opposed to the posturing often found on stage at the time. Here, Dale learned the fundamentals of acting. After graduation, Dale auditioned for the road show of Polly of the Circus and was hired. Dale gained experience as an actor and returned to New York, where he was unable to find a job, after two years he gave up his dream of being an actor. By 1912, he was a Packard car salesman, barely getting by at age 24 and living close to Hell's Kitchen. Gangs such as the Hudson dusters were active in the area. He began to review his life and found one of his best memories was teaching public speaking at the teachers college . He quit the job with Packard and convinced the director of the 125th Street YMCA to let Dale teach a public speaking course on commission. In this way he earned $30 a night instead of the $2 the salary would have paid. He also had to keep the classes engaging, as the students had not prepaid for the course.
a Dale Carnegie club pin
On his first class, he ran into trouble, what worked well at the teachers college and in drama school wasn't going over well with his students, who were mostly businessmen who wanted to improve the speaking ability to get ahead. In desperation, he called on one of his students to make an impromptu speech. This was to become one of the foundations of the Carnegie method, the chance to think on your feet to develop self confidence and poise and overcome the fear of public speaking .Positive reinforcement was need to build self-esteem and have fun with supportive class members. He soon found one of the main concerns of his students was worry, and talking about their worry helped them. In 1948, he wrote How to Stop Worrying and Start Living to more fully examine worry and stress in people's lives and how to take action against it with thirty principles. This one man class would go on to become a multi-million dollar organization. The organization started outside the educational establishment, but became respected as one of the best places to learn public speaking. Prior the WWII, Carnegie did most of the teaching himself. After the great success of How to Win Friends and Influence People, published in 1937, he began to license his system to keep up with demand.
Carnegie Hall, He was Carnagey before.
In 1916, Carnegie had a permanent office in Carnegie Hall and changed the spelling of his name from Carnagey to Carnegie. In 1916, Carnegie was introduced to Lowell Thomas, who was looking for a public speaking teacher and became friends. Thomas became a famous radio journalist. Thomas was with T. E. Lawrence during the war and called on Carnegie again after the war for advice on doing a lecture tour with film and pictures about his adventures, which became a hit in London. By 1917, Carnegie was doing well, earning about $500 a week and began to train assistants. During WWI, Carnegie served 18 months as a soldier. His business lost ground during the war years and had to be rebuilt .
Lowell Thomas
In 1927, Dale married Lolita Baucaire. the marriage was an unhappy one and ended ten years later in divorce. He lived in Paris, near Versailles until 1929, working on a novel titled The Blizzard based on his youth in Missouri. he was unable to publish the book and giving up the dream of being a novelist, he returned to New York to reestablish his organization.
Carnegie lost most of his savings in the stock market crash of 1929. He was able to continue teaching despite the economic hard times and his classes began to grow. In 1932 he took a trip to China, calling it his greatest adventure in living and was deeply moved by the poverty he saw there .
Lolita Carnegie, death certificate. Provided by Rick Sheridan
Carnegie lost most of his savings in the stock market crash of 1929. He was able to continue teaching despite the economic hard times and his classes began to grow. In 1932 he took a trip to China, calling it his greatest adventure in living and was deeply moved by the poverty he saw there .
How to Win friends and Influence People
After being published in 1937, How to Win Friends sold 333,000 in four months. Dale expected to sell 30,000 . When the book became a bestseller, Dale told a reporter he 'was the most surprised man in the world.'
Even though he was not a success with novels, he had published four books by 1934 on public speaking, Lincoln (Lincoln, the Unknown, 1932) and Little Known Facts About Well Known People. In 1934, Leon Shimkin from Simon & Schuster attended a Carnegie promotion and was impressed by Carnegie's methods. He proposed a book to be written by Carnegie to be called The Art of Getting Along with People. Carnegie, who had submitted two books before to the publishing house and been rejected at first refused, but Shimkin persisted and eventually Carnegie agreed. Carnegie was a painstaking writing,rewriting lines over and over .After two years, he gave his manuscript to Simon & Schuster for the book, now titled How to Win friends and Influence People, which was accepted .
The first edition was published in 1936, with an introduction by Lowell Thomas and was dedicated to his friend Homer Cory, who was from Carnegie's hometown and a journalist in New York and encouraged Carnegie's aspirations as a writer. Shimkin gave out books to recent graduates of Carnegie's course, who shared it with their friends, resulting in thousands of orders . Shimkin also took out full page ads in the New York Times. Soon the book was selling 5,000 copies a week and on The New York Times best seller list .The success of the book led to Carnegie writing a newspaper column. The success of the book increase attendance of his course program, which he formally called the Carnegie Institute for effective Speaking and Human Relations .Carnegie was shocked at the great success of the book. It has sold an estimated 15,000,000 copies to date and was one of the first self help book. Carnegie's first royalty check was for $90,000 and it lay on his desk a week before he deposited it . Irving D . Tressler wrote a parody of Carnegie's book called How to Lose Friends and Alienate People and claimed Carnegie's methods were causing people to become boring. Some of his chapters include How to Discourage Overnight Guests and Always turn a Conversation into an Argument.
Carnegie met his future wife, Dorothy Price Vanderpool, when speaking at the first business schools to offer his course, the Oklahoma School of Business in 1941. At a small ceremony On November 5, 1944, in Tulsa, Oklahoma, they became married. Carnegie joked afterward 'Even after I wrote that book, it took me eight years to influence a woman to marry me.' Dorothy devolved the Dorothy Carnegie Course in Personal Development for Women which existed until the 1960s. The Carnegies had a child in 1951, Donna, when Dale was 63.In 1955, Dale's health began to fail and died on November 1,1955 from the blood disease, uremia. He was buried at the family grave in Belton, Missouri. Speaking at his alma mater on the year of his death he said
"Learning isn't so important,it's what kind of man you make out of yourself while you're learning that counts
State Normal School Number Two
How to Win Friends and Influence Peopleby Dale Carnegie | ||
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November 2, 1955
OBITUARYDale Carnegie, Author, Is Dead
By THE NEW YORK TIMES
Dale Carnegie, whose book "How to Win Friends and Influence People" was one of the world's most phenomenal bestsellers, died yesterday at his home, 27 Wendover Road, Forest Hills, Queens. He had been ill for some time. He would have been 67 years old on Nov. 24.
Mr. Carnegie was born in poverty on a Missouri farm, but found that a silver tongue could be more useful than a silver spoon in winning wealth and fame. While a student at State Teachers College, Warrensburg, Mo., he had to live at home because he was too poor to pay $1 a day for room and board. When he found he could not compete with the campus athletes for popularity, he took to public speaking. He felt this activity would cure his feeling of inferiority.
After graduation in 1908, Mr. Carnegie failed at several jobs before he started to earn a living here in 1912 as a teacher of public speaking in classes at the Young Men's Christian Association.
By the time "How to Win Friends and Influence People" was published in 1936, Mr. Carnegie had become one of the country's leading teachers of public speaking.
Book a Sensation
"How to Win Friends and Influence People," originally published by Simon & Schuster at $2, was an immediate success. It rose rapidly in the best-seller lists and made its author known wherever books are read.
A spokesman for Simon & Schuster said yesterday that the book has sold 4,844,938 copies, of which 1,420,938 were in the hard-cover edition. It has had fifty-two printings in the paperback edition, while the regular edition has just gone through its seventy-first printing. From last March to last September, more than 20,000 copies of the hardcover edition were sold. It has been translated into twenty-nine languages and was said by the spokesman to be second only to the Bible in nonfiction sales.
A review of the book in The New York Times of Feb. 14, 1937, said in effect that Mr. Carnegie's prescription for success was to smile and be friendly, not to argue or find fault and never to tell another person he was wrong. The review observed that there was "a subtle cynicism" in this approach, but that the book offered some "simple sound, practical common sense."
Joined Debating TeamMr. Carnegie was born in Maryville, Mo., the second son of James William and Amanda Elizabeth Carnegie. After the family moved to Warrensburg, (to attend UCM) Dale Carnegie found he had an aptitude for reciting, and while in high school joined the debating team. He became so impressed with the style of a speaker at a Chautauqua lecture that he decided to emulate him. It is said he practiced recitations on the horse he rode to and from college.
Mr. Carnegie later became a salesman at Alliance, Neb., for the International Correspondence Schools, and for the meat-packing concern of Armour & Co. By 1911, when he had saved $500, an acquaintance persuaded him to become an actor. He studied at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and later played the part of Dr. Hartley in a road show of "Polly and the Circus." This experience turned him from the theatre. His career as a teacher of public speaking started soon thereafter.
After a year and a half of Army service at Camp Upton on Long Island in World War I, Mr. Carnegie became business manager for Lowell Thomas, who was on a lecture tour. After the tour, Mr. Carnegie continued his teaching of public speaking.
Mr. Carnegie's first marriage ended in divorce in 1931. On Nov. 5, 1944, at Tulsa, Okla., he married Mrs. Dorothy Price Vanderpool, who also had been divorced. Mrs. Carnegie later helped her husband to establish special courses for women.
450,000 Took Courses
Since 1953, the headquarters for all the Carnegie courses have been in a converted five-story brownstone at 22 West Fifty-fifth Street.
A spokesman there yesterday said that in the last forty years 450,000 persons had taken Mr. Carnegie's courses. They are conducted in 750 cities in this country and in fifteen foreign countries under licenses issued by Dale Carnegie Publishers, Inc. About 50,000 persons a year enroll in these courses all over the world, the spokesman said.
Among the other books written by Mr. Carnegie were "Lincoln the Unknown" (1932); "Little Known Facts About Well Known People" (1934); "Five Minute Biographies" (1937); "Biographical Roundup" (1945), and "How to Stop Worrying and Start Living" (1948).
Mr. Carnegie's advice for successful living might be summed up in two of his maxims: "Forget yourself; do things for others," and "Cooperate with the inevitable."
In addition to his wife, Mr. Carnegie leaves a daughter, Donna Dale, who will be 4 years old next month. Mrs. Carnegie also has a daughter, Rosemary, by her previous marriage.
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