Dale Carnegie 1888 – 1955

Biography

Dale Carnegie taught America how to talk to itself. Born into poverty on a Missouri farm, he built a career teaching public speaking and self-improvement, then wrote How to Win Friends and Influence People in 1936 — a book that has never gone out of print and turned its author’s name into a synonym for getting along with people. He followed it with How to Stop Worrying and Start Living in 1948, and his courses still run around the world. He died of lymphoma on November 1, 1955, at 66, and is buried at Belton Cemetery in Missouri, leaving behind the most influential self-help empire of the twentieth century. He began teaching his first public-speaking classes at a New York YMCA, where audiences packed the halls. He also wrote Lincoln the Unknown in 1932 and several other books, all in the same plain-spoken, practical voice.