More than 80 years after its publication, How to Win Friends and Influence People remains one of the most influential self-improvement books ever written. Yet the man behind it, Dale Carnegie, came from circumstances far removed from wealth, power, or privilege. Compared to the story of the “Steel King” Andrew Carnegie, whose name he happened to share, Dale Carnegie’s upbringing was far humbler and more representative of the lives of ordinary Americans.
Born in 1888 on a farm near Maryville, Missouri, Dale Carnegie grew up in a rural farming family and experienced many of the hardships that defined life in the American Midwest at the turn of the century. Despite sharing one of the most famous surnames in American history, he had no connection to the industrial empire built by Andrew Carnegie. He was also more than half a century younger, coming of age in a rapidly changing America where success would depend less on steel mills and railroads than on communication, persuasion, and human relationships.
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