Dale Carnegie Biography

Popular American lecturer, author, public speaker and physiologist who analysed the physiology of the famous personality was initially named Dale Carnegey after his birth on 24th November 1888 but later he got famous as Dale Carnegie. He was born on a farm in Maryville, Missouri, USA. he was born in a poor family that was thriving with poverty at the time of his birth. But as a child, he was very active in school as well as in his college with extracurricular activities such as debates and public speaking events.

After he graduated from college his first job was as a salesman in Nebraska and after that, he took up acting in New York City and finally started teaching public speaking at YMCA. Soon his lectures became very popular and successful among students to an extent that he began lecturing in a house packed with students just to listen to him. He then started to publish pamphlets to standardize his methods of teachings which he later compiled to form a book that is titled “Public Speaking: A Practical Course for Business Men” which was also re-published in the year 1926 by the title “Public Speaking and Influencing Men in Business”. At the same time, he also served as a manager of a lecture tour along with Lowell Thomas and there he compiled a book named “Facts About Well Known People” released in the year 1934.

One of his books made him instantly popular and a well-known name among influential writers and the book was titled “How to Win Friends and Influence People” which was published in the year 1936. This book not only dealt with the human physiology that was mostly unknown but also pondered upon the fact that the attitude of every individual is crucial. It has also illustrated with examples of handicaps that are not instantly preferred in regular jobs and can also be4 benefiting if represented advantageously. Carnegie utilized his capability to advise and motivate people through his understanding of human physiology and good public speaking skills that helped him become the top advice book writer and gain capital. Some of his other popular books include “How to Stop Worrying and Start Living” which is a compilation of common sense tricks that help reduce stress and was published in the year 1948.

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Image: Illustration of Dale Carnegie

Dale Carnegie Life in Beginning

He was born in Missouri, USA, to his parents James William and Amanda Elizabeth Carnagey on 24th November 1888. His parents were very poverty-stricken farmers of Maryville. His parents moved to Warrensburg, Missouri while he was still in middle school. Though he was unskilled and poor in sports and athletics, he still could win over people and easily made friends because he was very skilled with his words. 

He was often seen attending the assemblies of Chautauqua while he was in high school. This form of entertainment quickly got into rural communities in the entire country that featured highly 

Skilled speakers, entertainers, musicians as well as preachers. But he was more interested in listening to the speakers and that was the major reason he was so keen on attending these assemblies. Later inspired by the public speakers and their oration skills he joined the debate club of his school and soon became a skilful orator. 

In 1906, just after graduating from high school, he joined the Local State Teachers College in Warrensburg.  His family was not in a financial position to afford $1 per day a room in boarding, thus he used to ride on his horse back and forth from college on a regular basis. He took the advantage of this solidarity travelling time for speech recitation practice and to polish and refine his oratory skills. He used to enjoy participating in almost all the inter-college debate competitions that were organized and used to win most of them that he participated in. His oratory skills and public speaking power reached a height where other students were ready to pay him and learn his skill in return. 

Early Career 

He graduated from college in 1908 and due to his family’s extreme financial situation he joined as a salesman for the International Correspondence Schools that were based out of the territory of the States in Nebraska. He quickly changed to another job as a salesman in a meatpacking business armour and company. As he developed a profound interest to be an actor during his high school and college days, in 1911, as he could save $500, it was sufficient for him to quit the job of the salesman and relocate to New York to pursue a career in acting.

Dale Carnegie’s passion to learn acting made him join the Academy of Drama and Arts in New York that finally summoned a leading role of Dr. Hartley in a roadshow of Polly and Circus that was produced by a travelling production. He did not enjoy the experience and quickly came to terms that the theatre life is not aligned with his stream of interest and soon he quit it.

During world war I, he enlisted with the army of the United States and served a little more than a year at the uptown camp that was settled on Long Island. After he was released from the Army camp, he was soon hired for the post of business manager in a travelling lecture course that was taught by Lowell Thomas. He was one of the profound American writers of his time and even broadcasted one of his best projects, Covering Lawrence of Arabia. 

Dale Carnegie as a Public Speaker 

While he was carrying out the main role of a roadshow, to his much dissatisfaction he started looking for other career options where he could find his interest as an oratory. Soon he realized how in high school students were ready to pay him to learn oratory skills from him. That was the only skill that helped and supported him throughout his career as a successful salesman. So he decided to teach students and thus he himself pitched the idea of taking a few classes of public speaking for adults to the YMCA. Finally, he was allotted a slot at night to teach public speaking skills but it came with a cut of his profits.

After taking a few classes it proved to be a big success as more and more people were flooding to take his training classes. He then concentrated his focus on the daily requirement of a professional in any business or services and thus started teaching basic skills to the students as well as professional adults on how to clear an interview, make a presentation that is more persuasive in nature and skills to make and maintain good relationships with people and personal and professional life. He then started an interactive session with his students attending the classes where each student used to come up with their success stories in their workplace by applying the skill that they have learned in previous classes. Within a span of two years, his classes became so popular over the place that he moved out his students in YMCA and established his own institute for teaching interpersonal and public-speaking skills and the institute was named after the speaker, Dale Carnegie Institute so as to accommodate all the students that were growing by numbers day by day.  

In 1913, the first book that was titled “Public Speaking and Influencing Men of Business” was published and written by Dale Carnegie, so as to be used as a textbook for the students of his institute. But in a short period of time after the book came out he changed his last name from “Carnagey” to “Carnegie” which was rather a business tactic played by the orator so that the people reading his book quickly related him and his institute to the famous Carnegie family with whom he otherwise carries no relation. It was simply to gain fair popularity.

First Successful Book

Gradually he started the process of refining his curriculum of the institute more to meet the needs of the professional students in a much better way. As he started observing the business world more closely, he to his surprise, observed that the leaders in the business have more interpersonal and persuasive skills than technical know-how. So he incorporated in his curriculum and textbook the knowledge of presenting oneself, effective techniques of public speaking, the knowledge on how to master social and communication skills that actually distinguish the leader of the industries from the rest of the crowd. As he began to guide and teach his students about all these determining and significant skills to success, it came to his realization that no books on this particular matter existed to date.

Thus after intensive research work and reading thousands of biographies of successful people to know the basic reasons behind their success, in 1936, he finally composed and published the book named “ How to Win Friends and Influence People”. Even though the selling of the book in the initial days started with a moderate no. of 5000 copies, it soon became one of the most demanded and best-seller books all over the country. Soon it became a key for the hunger for self-improvement and over his lifetime he was able to successfully sell 5 million copies that were translated into almost all the languages around the globe.

Impact of Self-improvement and Adult-education by Dale Carnegie

After the success of the book, he expanded his institute with over 750 branches in 15 countries and in all states of America. By the time of Dale Carnegie's death, almost 450,000 people started taking his classes in 15 different foreign lands. While teaching his students he also started writing biographies about many successful personalities out of his belief that the best way to learn about success is to read and follow the path marked by them that is hidden in their life history to crawl up the ladder. He initially published the biography of Abraham Lincon under the title, Lincoln the Unknown in 1932 and later he published a compilation of short biographies of many famous personalities in books like “Little Know Facts About Well Known People” in 1934,  “Five Minutes Biographies” in 1937 and “ Biographical Roundups” in 1944. He then published another book based on interpersonal skill development called “How to Stop Worrying and Start Living” in 1948.

Dale Carnegie Death

Dale Carnegie's died at the age of 66 on 1st November 1955. His death was caused due to Hodgkin’s disease. The news of the legendary public orator and writer’s demise came as shock to the world. 

Even after his demise, Dale Carnegie’s non-fiction books on self-improvement kept inspiring and teaching many generations from the time till today.  His institute has kept on expanding along with his teachings and books and currently is operative in over 90 countries and is considered the pioneer of the personal-skill training institute and is still looked upon as the most prestigious institute all over the world.