December 29, 2025 • 41 mins
The origins of self-help writing are often traced back to ancient times. This episode talks through some early versions of it, the goal-setting advice of a founding father, and the beginnings of the modern self-help genre.
Research:
- Brady, Diane. “Charles Manson’s Turning Point: Dale Carnegie Classes.” Bloomberg Businessweek. July 22, 2013. https://web.archive.org/web/20130925204803/http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-07-22/charles-mansons-turning-point-dale-carnegie-classes
- Britannica Editors. "Lunyu". Encyclopedia Britannica, 29 Jan. 2019, https://www.britannica.com/topic/Lunyu
- Britannica Editors. "Norman Vincent Peale". Encyclopedia Britannica, 27 May. 2025, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Norman-Vincent-Peale
- Carnegie, Dale. “How to Win Friends and Influence People.” London. Vermillion. Digital: https://dn720004.ca.archive.org/0/items/english-collections-1/How%20To%20Win%20Friends%20And%20Influence%20People%20-%20Carnegie%2C%20Dale.pdf
- Fairbanks, Douglas. “Laugh and Live.” New York. Britton Publishing Company. 1917. https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/12887/pg12887.txt
- Fontaine, Carole R. “A Modern Look at Ancient Wisdom: The Instruction of Ptahhotep Revisited.” The Biblical Archaeologist, vol. 44, no. 3, 1981, pp. 155–60. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/3209606
- Franklin, Benjamin. “The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin.” HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY. 1916. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/20203/20203-h/20203-h.htm#X
- Battiscombe G. “THE INSTRUCTION OF PTAH-HOTEP AND THE INSTRUCTION OF
KE'GEMNI: THE OLDEST BOOKS IN THE WORLD.” London. John Murray. 1906. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/30508/30508-h/30508-h.htm - Lilienfeld, Scott O. and Hal Arkowitz. “Can positive thinking be negative?” Scientific American. May 1, 2011. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/can-positive-thinking-be-negative/
- Ray, J. D. “Egyptian Wisdom Literature.” Wisdom in Ancient Israel. Ed. John Day, Robert P. Gordon, and Hugh Godfrey Maturin Williamson. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995. 17–29.
- Stableford, Brian. “Samuel Smiles.” Ebsco. 2023. https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/history/samuel-smiles
- Seneca, Lucius Annaius, and Garth D. Williams (tr.). “On the Shortness of Life.” https://ia601705.us.archive.org/25/items/SenecaOnTheShortnessOfLife/Seneca%20on%20the%20Shortness%20of%20Life.pdf
- Tabor, Nick. "Dale Carnegie". Encyclopedia Britannica, 20 Nov. 2025, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Dale-Carnegie
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
of iHeartRadio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly
Frye and I'm Tracy V.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Wilson.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
Oh, Tracy. We're in a time of year when a
lot of folks are kind of looking to the future
and thinking about the coming year and setting goals for themselves.
We've talked about it many times on the show. I
love doing that, I love the year turnover, and I
love a good resolution and a new planner. But this
also leads to a lot of people purchasing self help
books of one kind or another as they work on
(00:38):
those goals. And I am very fascinated by the self
help genre, so I thought it might be interesting to
talk about the ways self help books have evolved over time,
even before they were called self help books. But here's
the real real. I almost produced a very different episode.
I started out actually working on an episode about positive
(01:01):
psychology and the ways that having a positive mindset has
been touted as a life changing attribute throughout history. The idea, though,
is so often weaponized against people who are dealing with
illnesses or disabilities, or just difficult times in their lives.
As though if they just adopted a positive attitude, everything
would turn around. Look, positive thinking has benefits, But I
(01:26):
don't want any part of that other blogney. We will
talk a little bit about some of it, but researching
that as a single episode made me feel weird and
I didn't like it. So while there's the potential for
it to become a future episode if I find an
avenue into it, that doesn't make me feel lucky. That's
not what this is. This seemed like a more enjoyable
(01:48):
way to end the year. As I just said, there
are still some mentions in this episode of how people
need to be self reliant and upbeat. The advice of
the nineteenth century definitely came with that attitude that that
was all you needed, but it is much less than
the other topic would have given us. Some of them
do insist that people just need to laugh more, which
(02:11):
is also pretty useless. We're not dealing with that. We
are also not getting into things like workout books and
like how to change your body, because your body's fine
just the way it is. This is actually just to
set up expectations. A pretty breezy history through some of
the ancient books that offered relatively practical advice all the
(02:32):
way through to when of more how to approach was developed,
and we're noting a few prominent titles and standout developments
along the way. And I kind of use the guardrails
of focusing on writings that were mostly intended for kind
of general self help advice. Some of these writings are problematic,
but that's sort of secondary to the other. Rather Labrador
(02:55):
retriever esque takes on positivity, and I'm looking at you,
Douglas Fairbanks, and we'll talk about that. We're going to
talk about his book, but the most problematic one, which
does kind of fall into that it's all in your
mind and you can control your life with your mind.
Bucket is going to come last. So if even hearing
about it, even though ours is a pretty critical lens,
(03:17):
is not your thing, that will be where to jump,
and we will give you a heads up when we
get there. It was a very long intro to say
self help books are interesting, some are yucky, and we
will let you know before we get to the luckiest one.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
We're talking about the origins of self help writing are
often traced back to the ancient world, and there have
been texts full of advice written from the moment that
humans could write, it seems ancient Egyptian writing offered advice
on how to live a virtuous life, known as wisdom
literature or sabaiet. This is often framed as a hybrid
(03:55):
of narrative and didactic writing, contextualized as pieces of wisdom
or instruction being shared by a father to his son.
The most famous example is the Teachings of Tahoteps, sometimes
called the Maxims of tahoe Tep or the Instruction of Tahotep,
which was believed to have been written during the reign
(04:16):
of Jedkari a Sesesi in the twenty fourth century BCE.
Is often referenced as being the oldest book in the.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
World, and this book is laid out as the advice
that vizier Tahotep gives his son with the permission of
the Pharaoh regarding how things operate, so that he may be,
in the Pharaoh's words, a quote good example for the
children of the magistrates. These teachings offer a lot of
practical instructions, like how to win an argument. That section
(04:46):
states quote, if thou find an arguer talking, one that
is well disposed and wiser than thou, let thine arms fall,
bend thy back, Be not angry with him. If he
agree not with THEE, refrain from speaking e. Oppose him
not at any time when he speaketh. If he address
THEE as one ignorant of the matter, Thine humbleness shall
(05:07):
bear away his contentions. If thou find an arguer talking
thy fellow, one that is within thy reach, keep not
silent when he saith aught that is evil. So shalt
thou be wiser than he. Great will be the applause
on the part of the listeners, and thy name shall
be good in the knowledge of princes. If thou find
(05:28):
an arguer talking a poor man, that is to say,
not thine equal, be not scornful toward him because he
is lowly. Let him alone. Then shall he confound himself.
Question him not to please thine heart. Neither pour out
thy wrath upon him, that is before THEE. It is
shameful to confuse a mean mind. If thou be about
(05:49):
to do that which is in thine heart, overcome it
as a thing rejected of princes. So if they're smarter
than you, maybe supplicate. If they're your equal, call him out.
If they're saying bad stuff, and if there's somebody that
is less smart than you, don't be mean, which is
actually all pretty good advice. This book is also full
(06:09):
of instructions on things like keeping your wife happy, which
included keeping her well fed and clothed and gladdening her heart,
how to treat servants, which is pretty good advice. It's
about being kind and respectful of people, even if they
are technically under your employee or beneath you in the
hierarchy of society, obeying your elders, et cetera. And on learning,
(06:31):
it stated quote, be not proud because thou art learned.
But discourse with the ignorant man is with the sage.
For no limit can be set to skill. Neither is
there any craftsman that possesseth full advantages. Fair speech is
more rare than the emerald that is found by slave
maidens on the pebbles.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
Confucius, who lived in the sixth and fifth centuries BCE,
did not write any books himself, but as collected wisdom,
was committed to write in books like the Anaalects, and
could loosely be considered self help because of the advice
he offered on living a long and fulfilled life. Confucius
based his teachings on the idea that people are inherently good,
(07:15):
and that by studying and practicing virtue, the less noble
characteristics and instincts of human behavior could be controlled. Almost
everyone has probably been exposed to a number of quotes
attributed to Confucius, like quote everything has beauty, but not
everyone sees it, or quote in a country well governed,
(07:35):
poverty is something to be ashamed of, and a country
badly governed wealth is something to be ashamed of. When
most Westerners today think of Confucius, there's this tendency to
envision sort of a peaceful sage, just sort of issuing
inspiring or thought provoking phrases. But Confucius lived at a
contentious time in China's history, and he was involved in
(07:57):
political strife as he worked in service of the Duke
of lou It was after his exile, because of his
political ideas, that Confucius began teaching his ideals of mutual
respect in rural China.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
There is a really interesting aspect of Confucian wisdom, which
is it because it was written down by his students
after he died, we can't conclusively know that all of
his often quoted words were actually entirely his own, or
his own at all. Still, the Analects can be considered
an early self help guide.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
Ancient Greece also offers some examples of writing that could
loosely be labeled as self help. In On the Shortness
of Life, Stoic philosopher Seneca offered wisdom such as quote,
it's not that we have a short time to live,
but that we waste much of it. Life is long enough,
and it's been given to us in generous measure for
(08:51):
accomplishing the greatest things, if the whole of it is
well invested. But when life is squandered through soft and
careless living, and when it's spent on no worthwhile pursuit,
death finally presses and we realize that the life which
we didn't notice passing, has passed away. He also mentions
(09:12):
that wealth is often a burden, noting that men of
prosperity quote are choked by their own goods, giving readers
the lesson that it's better not to want so much stuff.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
Honestly, a lot of the advice Seneca gives in this
book is solid, and it's pretty inspiring. He cautioned against
postponing the things that you want to do, waiting for
some achievement marker, or for conditions to be exactly right
before you can rest, or play, or just enjoy your life.
He wrote quote, putting things off is the biggest waste
(09:45):
of life, robbing each day as it comes, and denying
the present with the promise of the future. The greatest
obstacle to living is expectancy.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
But these early examples of guiding people to improved living
we're very different in their focus from the way we
think about self help guides today. There was no attempt
to frame it as a cheat code for greater success.
These weren't about achieving or getting anything. They were primarily
about getting through life the best way you could and
being a better person, and that was so that you
(10:16):
could be a better member of society in most cases.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
Coming up, we will talk about how one of the
US founding fathers brought the idea of self help instruction
into the modern age. But first we will pause for
a sponsor break. Benjamin Franklin didn't publish a self help
(10:43):
book exactly, but in his autobiography he included a lot
of advice about the way he lived his life and
his own quest to continually improve, which he had systematized,
and this makes up chapter nine of that writing titled
Plan for Attaining Moral Perfection, and he shared that system
he developed, complete with his daily calendar and a set
(11:05):
of thirteen virtues he believed were important, and the way
he implemented his pursuit of those values in his life,
also with a calendar layout. He talks about how tricky
the pursuit of moral perfection can be, writing quote, I
wished to live without committing any fault. At any time.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
I would conquer all that either natural inclination, custom, or
company might lead me into. I knew or thought I
knew what was right and wrong. I did not see
why I might not always do the one and avoid
the other. But I soon found I had undertaken a
task of more difficulty than I had imagined. While my
(11:45):
care was employed in guarding against one fault, I was
often surprised by another. Habit took the advantage of inattention.
Inclination was sometimes too strong. For reason. I concluded at
length that the mere speculative can and that it was
our interest to be completely virtuous, was not sufficient to
(12:05):
prevent our slipping, and that the contrary habits must be
broken and good ones acquired and established before we can
have any dependence on a steady, uniform rectitude of conduct
for this purpose. I therefore contrived the following method.
Speaker 1 (12:22):
So the first step in his method was figuring out
a list of virtues that he thought would encompass the
entirety of improved morality if he pursued them. And he
came up with thirteen, and each of them had a
short explanatory phrase to elaborate on what that meant in
day to day life. We're going to talk in a
minute about why he chose thirteen. But the list of
(12:44):
thirteen virtues were One temperance, eat not to dullness, drink
not to elevation. Two silence, speak not but what may
benefit others or yourself. Avoid trifling conversations. Three order, Let
all all your things have their places. Let each part
of your business have its time. Four resolution resolve to
(13:07):
perform what you ought, perform without fail what you resolve.
Five Frugality. Make no expense but to do good to
others or yourself i e. Waste nothing. Six industry, lose
no time, be always employed in something useful. Cut off
all unnecessary actions. Seven Sincerity, use no hurtful deceit. Think
(13:32):
innocently and justly, and if you speak, speak accordingly. Eight
Justice wrong none by doing injuries or omitting the benefits
that are your duty. Nine moderation avoid extremes, forbear resenting
injuries so much as you think they deserve. Ten Cleanliness.
Tolerate no uncleanliness in body, clothes or habitation. Eleven Tranquility
(13:58):
be not disturbed at trifle or at accidents common or unavoidable.
Twelve chastity. Rarely use venery but for health or offspring,
never to dullness, weakness, or the injury of your own
or another's piece or reputation. Thirteen Humility imitate Jesus and Socrates. Listen,
(14:18):
we know Ben Franklin was a womanizer, so chastity was
very funny to me.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
Working on thirteen different virtues is a lot, and Franklin
knew this was something that would take ongoing work, so
he planned to work on it in a rotating system.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
Quote.
Speaker 2 (14:35):
My intention being to acquire the habitude of all these virtues.
I judged it would be well not to distract my
attention by attempting the whole at once. But to fix
it on one of them at a time, and when
I should be master of that, then to proceed to another,
and so on till I should have gone through the thirteen.
And as the previous acquisition of some might facilitate the
(14:58):
acquisition of certain, I arranged them with that view as
they stand above.
Speaker 1 (15:05):
So Ben Franklin describes in this autobiography setting up a
little notebook that is going to sound rather familiar to
anyone who has used a bullet journal or a similar
tracking journal. And he's very thorough in his description and
actually includes example charts so that readers can create their own.
He used one page to set up a chart with
(15:25):
seven columns for the days of the week across the top,
and then lines for each of the thirteen virtues going
down the page. So, using this chart, anytime he failed
to uphold a virtue, he would make a black mark
in the box that corresponded with the virtue and the
day of the week. And the goal was eventually to
have a completely clean chart.
Speaker 2 (15:46):
But for each week he picked one virtue as his
primary focus. The idea was that focusing on a single
virtue for a week would strengthen that virtue without having
to worry about any of the others. Then the second week,
when he focus on the next virtue, the first one
would already have been improved, and this was meant to
be a repeating system. He chose thirteen virtues because that
(16:08):
meant he could complete the cycle four times every year,
filling all fifty two weeks of the calendar. Franklin also
offered an example of how he allocated his time each day,
with blocks for preparing his day work in the morning
and afternoon, a midday break for eating and reading, and
a wrap up block from six to ten in which
(16:29):
he tidied up, had his dinner, enjoyed entertainment, and had
what he called his quote examination.
Speaker 1 (16:35):
Of the day. Regarding the results of his whole method,
he wrote, quote, I entered upon the execution of this
plan for self examination and continued it with occasional intermissions
for some time. I was surprised to find myself so
much fuller of faults than I had imagined, but I
had the satisfaction of seeing them diminish. And he's also
(16:56):
clear that this is not a system in which it's
really all that realistic to achieve perfection, writing quote, But
on the whole though I never arrived at the perfection
I had been so ambitious of obtaining, but fell far
short of it. Yet I was, by the endeavor a
better and a happier man than I otherwise should have
been if I had not attempted it. He also mentioned
(17:18):
that the virtue that gave him the most trouble was order.
Again a little surprising, perhaps made me giggle. Franklin also
shared various quotes that he would sometimes include in his
notebooks to inspire him throughout his efforts to improve himself.
Though Benjamin Franklin included the kind of material you'd associate
with self help books and his autobiography, it still wasn't
(17:41):
called self help. That term, which sometimes has a hyphen
in it and sometimes not, was coined by Scottish author
Samuel Smiles. His work in the field is sometimes described
as ushering in the modern genre of self help. Smiles
was born on December twenty third, eighteen twelve in Berwickshire, Scotland,
(18:01):
which is in the southeast of the country. His father
was also named Samuel, and his mother was named Janet,
and he had ten siblings. He attended school in Haddington
and became an apprentice to a physician's office at the
age of fourteen. When he was seventeen, he moved to Leith,
Scotland with one of the doctors that he apprenticed under,
(18:22):
and then he enrolled in Edinburgh University in eighteen twenty
nine to get his medical degree. When Samuel was twenty two,
big life events happened. He got his MD and his
father died while he was still grieving. He started his
own medical practice, but he didn't stay with it for
very long. Smiles had started writing for the Edinburgh Weekly
(18:42):
Chronicle as sort of a hobby, writing articles about politics,
and he found that he really enjoyed writing so much
that he published a book in eighteen thirty eight about
raising children. Yeah it's got a misleading title, which we'll
talk about misleading titles with him in a moment, called
physical education. But it's literally about like the physical body
(19:03):
of your child, not about doing sports like activities and exercise.
The same year that book came out, he also made
a career pivot to journalism because he wanted to write
full time and not be a doctor anymore, and he
moved to Leeds, England to try to build a career
in that field. He worked as editor of the Leeds
Times from eighteen thirty eight to eighteen forty two, and
(19:26):
while working at the paper in Leeds, which was considered
a progressive publication, he became a huge supporter of free trade.
Smiles didn't stay in the journalism game though. In eighteen
forty he met civil engineer George Stevenson, who is known
today by the nickname the Father of Railways. Stevenson will
probably be a future episode, but the short version is this,
(19:49):
he was highly instrumental in the development of the steam
locomotive and railways in England. When the two men met
at a railway opening, they hit it off and soon
Smiles was working for the railway as the secretary of
the Leeds in Thirsk Railway. That was in eighteen forty five.
He stayed with the company for more than twenty years,
working in various positions. During that time, he kept writing.
(20:11):
He continued to write political articles which were published in
Eliza Cook's journal. He published a biography of George Stevenson
in eighteen fifty seven. He would continue writing about accomplished
engineers and the engineering accomplishments that were ushering in the
industrial age for the rest of his life. But the
book that was a runaway hit was the one titled
(20:34):
Self Help with Illustrations of Character and Conduct, which came
out in eighteen fifty nine. Smiles had finished writing the
book before his Stevenson biography, but it had some difficulty
in finding an interested publisher. On the title page of
Self Help, Smiles included the Shakespeare quote from the play
(20:55):
Hamlet this above all, to thine own self be true,
and it must fallow, so as the night the day
than canst not then be false to any man. He
explained in his introduction how he ended up writing such
a book quote. The origin of this book may be
briefly told. Some fifteen years since the author was requested
(21:15):
to deliver an address before the members of some evening
classes which had been formed in a northern town for
mutual improvement under the following circumstances. He spent some time
at this point talking through the organic formation of this group,
how it started with a few young men who met
in one of their homes every week to share knowledge
in the hopes of improving themselves, and how that group
(21:37):
grew so large that they eventually needed to rent space
in a large apartment that had once been a cholera hospital.
When the group had one hundred members, they started asking
lecturers to come and give talks to the assembled young men,
and that's when they approached Smiles. Speaking in the third person,
(21:58):
Smiles continues the story as it were guard in his
involvement quote, he could not fail to be touched by
the admirable self helping spirit which they had displayed, And
though entertaining but slight faith and popular lecturing, he felt
that a few words of encouragement, honestly and sincerely uttered,
might not be without some good effect. And in this
(22:20):
spirit he addressed them on more than one occasion, citing
examples of what other men had done as illustrations of
what each might, in a greater or less degree, do
for himself, and pointing out that their happiness and well
being as individuals and afterlife must necessarily depend mainly upon themselves,
(22:40):
upon their own diligent self culture, self discipline, and self control,
and above all, on that honest and upright performance of
individual duty, which is the glory of manly character. So
Smiles admits in this writing that this wasn't new information
he was sharing in these lectures, just sharing some relatively
(23:01):
old fashioned advice about various things. But this topic of
improving yourself this way became a source of great interest
to him after the first lecture, and he began to
study it. And that's when he started giving additional lectures
to the group based on those studies, and he stood
firm on the idea that those old fashioned pieces of
advice were still valid. Writing quote, the object of the book,
(23:25):
briefly is to reinculcate these old fashioned but wholesome lessons
which perhaps cannot be too often urged. That youth must
work in order to enjoy, that nothing creditable can be
accomplished without application and diligence, That the student must not
be daunted by difficulties, but conquer them by patience and perseverance,
(23:45):
And that above all, he must seek elevation of character,
without which capacity is worthless and worldly success is not.
Most of these lectures, and subsequently the chapters of the
book are about the lives of men who achieved a
measure of perceived success or greatness in their lives, and
what qualities smiles thought led them to that success. A
(24:09):
lot of the messaging in the book is really about
self reliance. It opens by saying you can only count
on yourself, and that relying on others will make you weak.
Speaker 2 (24:18):
Quote. Help from without is often enfeebling in its effects,
but help from within invariably invigorates. Whatever is done for
men or classes, to a certain extent takes away the
stimulus and necessity of doing for themselves. And where men
are subjected to over guidance and over government, the inevitable
(24:39):
tendency is to render them comparatively helpless. He also kind
of goes on an anti government rant here stating quote Moreover,
it is every day becoming more clearly understood that the
function of government is negative and restrictive, rather than positive
and active. There was actually a little bit of misunderstanding
(24:59):
of the title of this book initially, and in an
eighteen ninety seven reprint of it, the new preface, written
by Smiles included the mention of this problem quote. In
one respect, the title of the book, which it is
now too late to alter, has proved unfortunate, as it
has led some who have judged it merely by the
title to suppose that it consists of a eulogy of selfishness,
(25:22):
the very opposite of what it really is, or at
least what the author intended it to be. In the
twentieth century, the self help genre in publishing just exploded
in popularity. And we'll talk about a celebrity self help
book right after we hear from some of the sponsors
that keep stuffiness in history class going. In nineteen seventeen,
(25:53):
we see the rise of celebrity self help writing when
Douglas Fairbanks published his book Laugh and Live. Fairbanks is
one of those people who believed being happy is a
choice for everyone, and he opens the book with that
message quote, there is one thing in this good old
world that is positively sure. Happiness is for all who
(26:15):
strive to be happy, and those who laugh are happy.
Everybody is eligible, You me, the other fellow. Happiness is
fundamentally a state of mind, not a state of body
and mind controls. Indeed, it is possible to stand with
one foot on the inevitable banana peel of life, with
(26:35):
both eyes peering into the great beyond, and still be happy, comfortable,
and serene, if we will even so much as smile.
This book is obviously overly simplistic, with a very upbeat
attitude to sell it. Fairbanks advise as readers to take
stock of themselves to really acknowledge their strength and their weaknesses,
(26:58):
which can be a good exercise.
Speaker 1 (27:00):
For most people.
Speaker 2 (27:02):
But the rest is sort of fluffy, talk about finding
your drive and your energy and keeping in good shape
and good humor. There's even a chapter titled building up
a Personality that mostly just suggests you focus on what
he calls sturdy qualities without really saying what those qualities are. Overall,
(27:22):
the whole thing reads like a very perky book written
by a man who has lived a charmed life.
Speaker 1 (27:29):
Yeah, it couldn't help but envision Douglas Fairbanks with his
pen being like, this is really brilliant, and it's like
because it's written from your life experience, which has been
you know, very privileged, very happy, very lucky. A man
named Dale Carnegie wrote one of the most long lived
self help books in nineteen thirty six, which was How
(27:51):
to Win Friends and Influence People. Carnegie was a Missouri
farm kid who tried out a number of jobs when
he reached adulthood, including say and acting, before he started
teaching public speaking classes, which was something that he just
naturally excelled at. Incidentally, his name was originally spelled car
(28:11):
na ge Y but he changed it to Carnegie, the
spelling that we would associate with Andrew Carnegie. He allegedly
told people that that was so that others would misspell
his name less because they never got his original spelling right.
But there are also some theories that he just wanted
to capitalize on the clout of Andrew Carnegie's name.
Speaker 2 (28:32):
I would say, even almost one hundred years later, probably
most people who have heard of Dale Carnegie think he
was related to Andrew Carnegie somehow. Yes, there's also a
whole episode of the podcast If Books Could Kill about
this book. If yees want to have more about it,
well we'll talk about as Starting in the nineteen twenties,
(28:54):
Dale Carnegie started writing books about public speaking, and they
were aimed at businessmen, but he continued to give in
person courses, and that's how he was discovered by an
employee from Simon and Schuster who thought Dale's instruction could
appeal to a general audience outside the business world. The
result of that chance meeting was how to win friends
and influence people. The book promised eight things in its
(29:19):
opening pages, stating that it would help the reader quote
get out of a mental rut, think new thoughts, acquire
new visions, discover new ambitions, make friends quickly and easily.
Increase your popularity. Win people to your way of thinking.
Increase your influence, your prestige, your ability to get things done,
(29:39):
handle complaints, avoid arguments, keep your human contact smooth and pleasant.
Become a better speaker, a more entertaining conversationalist. Arouse enthusiasm
among your associates. This particular book is largely a guide
map to positive interpersonal communication. Carnegie explains that getting along
(30:01):
with people in a way that also gets you what
you want largely comes down to a form of cooperation.
Speaker 1 (30:07):
Quote. There's one way under high Heaven to get anybody
to do anything. Did you ever stop to think of that? Yes,
just one way, and that is by making the other
person want to do it. Remember there is no other way.
Of course. You can make someone want to give you
his watch by sticking a revolver in his ribs. You
(30:28):
can make your employees give you cooperation until your back
is turned by threatening to fire them. You can make
a child do what you want it to do by
a whip or a threat. But these crude methods have
sharply undesirable repercussions. So his advice is to get people
on your side by giving them a feeling of importance.
(30:49):
But he states vehemently, quote, i am not suggesting flattery.
Far from it. I'm talking about a new way of life.
Let me repeat, I am talking about a new way
of life. And some of Carnegie's advice around this is
pretty sound. It really comes down to appreciating people and
acknowledging them.
Speaker 2 (31:07):
Obviously there's more, but that really is the root of
the whole ideology. Really, be interested in other people, be
a good listener, show respect even when you disagree, and
this struck a chord with readers, and it still does.
How to Win Friends remains popular. While researching this episode,
Hollywood a search for it on Amazon and found that
(31:28):
it was number eighteen on the top twenty most read
books of the week, and it's been on that list
for years. So this all sounds pretty upbeat, and there
are actually a lot of famous and successful people who
have credited Carnegie's work with inspiring them and making them
better leaders and achievers. But it does of course come
(31:48):
with the dark aspect of people using this for outright manipulation,
and there is one very extreme instance of this and
that's Charles Manson, who took a course based on Carnegie's
book while he was in prison in the nineteen fifties
for stealing a car, and then he used those teachings
from the book to assemble his followers known as the Family,
(32:10):
and got them to commit crimes, including murder, often by
making them believe it was all their own idea rather
than his. Carnegie wrote several other self help books along
the same lines, as How to Win Friends, including how
to develop self confidence and influence people by public speaking,
How to Enjoy your life and your job, How to
(32:31):
Stop Worrying and start living, and The Quick and Easy
Way to Effective Speaking. Yeah, all with kind of you know,
mixed reviews, plenty of criticism to go around for these.
But the last book that we're going to talk about
has also been popular for decades, but it has been
controversial from its earliest printing, and so has its author,
(32:54):
and that is Norman Vincent Peel's nineteen fifty two book
The Power of Positive Thinking. So this, this book is
the most problematic one that we're talking about today that
we mentioned at the very top of the show. So
Norman Vincent Peel was born May thirty first eighteen ninety
eight in Bowersville, Ohio. His father was a Methodist preacher,
and the family moved around to whatever place the church
(33:15):
assigned him to. Peel initially pursued a journalism career after
getting his degree from Ohio Wesleyan University, but he switched
to ministry like his father not long after. Peel was,
by all accounts, a compelling and really popular preacher, with
a talent for quickly growing the size of any congregation
he was assigned to. In the nineteen thirties, he started
(33:38):
a radio show called The Art of Living, and in
nineteen fifty one he founded the American Foundation of Religion
and Psychiatry. In a twenty twenty one writing, cultural anthropologist
doctor Holly Walters mentioned this foundation and why it has
often been criticized, writing quote. Much of the current American
ethos of toxic positivity can be traced back to the
(34:00):
nineteen thirties when two men, Norman Vincent Peelee, a Methodist
minister and Smiley Blanton, a psychoanalyst, established a religio psychiatric
clinic next door to their church. Their methods then for
faith based psychological healing tended towards the idea that mental
and emotional problems had their ultimate roots in a crisis
(34:21):
of belief, and that is also true of the power
of positive thinking and other books written by Peel. He
gives example after example of people who've turned their lives
completely around simply by changing their thinking, but that thinking
is always tied to Christian faith. The tenth rule in
his list of rules for living a life of positivity
(34:43):
was quote, believed that you can receive power from God.
This is an interesting contrast to the self help instruction
of Benjamin Franklin, who wrote in his writing about his
method to improve morality quote, though my scheme was not
wholly without religion, there wasn't no mark of any of
the distinguishing tenets of any particular sect. I had purposely
(35:07):
avoided them, for being fully persuaded of the utility and
excellency of my method, and that it might be serviceable
to people in all religions, and intending some time or
other to publish it. I would not have anything in
it that should prejudice anyone of any sect against it.
Speaker 1 (35:24):
So, in addition to Peel's work, including the specific need
for the Christian religion, which caused a lot of criticism.
The bigger issue that a lot of people had and
still have with Peel is that there's not much verifiable
information in his writing. His many examples of success stories
all tend to be anonymous. It's all very I know
(35:46):
a guy who had this problem, but he did what
I told him, and now he doesn't have that problem anymore.
There's no names, and there's no case studies, and there's
no documentation of anything. While this book is also still
in print, Pie's method has been condemned by mental health
professionals since it came out because it lacks evidence and
(36:07):
can frankly be damaging to people. Peel also caused problems
for himself politically. He was very active in Conservative politics.
He was against the New Deal.
Speaker 2 (36:17):
For example, when Adelie Stevenson was on the ballot as
vice president, Peel openly campaigned against him, claiming that because
he was divorced, he was ungodly and problematic. Stevenson famously
equipped and replied to finding out about it quote, I
find Paul appealing and Peel appalling, invoking the apostle Paul
(36:38):
to show that he was indeed a religious man. But
in nineteen sixty so eight years after his very popular
book came out, he aligned with a number of other
Protestant ministers against JFK in the presidential campaign, convinced that
if Kennedy won, he would be more loyal to the
Pope than to the United States, and this caused, understandably
(36:58):
a huge outrage and a lot of people called for
Peel to resign as a minister. He did not, though,
and in nineteen eighty four Ronald Reagan gave him the
Presidential Medal of Freedom. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (37:10):
Even at the time, people in his congregation were like, what, No,
that's a weird conspiracy theory, dude, Like, yeah, he really
thought that the Papal States were somehow going to suddenly
control the United States. Yeah, because Kennedy was Catholic. The
conspiracy theory that's still around. Yeah, And this is an
incredibly powerful person preaching this. But in the years since
(37:35):
these early self help books, there have been literally thousands
of books to offer how to advice for people eager
to improve their lives, and they have become much more specialized.
While Ben Franklin wrote about his struggle to keep the
virtue of order and maintain tidy surroundings, just as a
single paragraph in his book. There are, for example, so
(37:56):
many books today intended to teach people how to keep house.
Any of them are even specialized within that niche area.
So you can find self help books about cleaning that
are geared toward neurodivergent readers, cleaning books that focus on
transitioning to minimalism, cleaning books that are just for small spaces,
et cetera. You can get books on how to get
(38:17):
better sleep, how to improve your memory, how to train
for a marathon, how to do almost anything you can
think of, and listen, some of them actually have fairly
good advice. There are a lot of self help books
that are written by credentialed experts that are reviewed by
their peers that actually are not going to cause damage.
Most of the advice in those ones involves the reader
(38:38):
doing a lot of actual work and being tenacious to
achieve that desired result or to improve things. But because
people are always eager to find that magic answer that's
going to change everything they dislike about their lives really quickly,
there are also a lot of useless ones that are
just capitalizing on that need.
Speaker 2 (38:57):
Additionally, different people function differently when it comes to things
like positive versus negative Thinking. A twenty eleven article and
Scientific American written by Scott o' lillenfield and hal Arkwitz
notes that quote positive thinking surely comes with advantages. It
may encourage us to take needed risks to expand our horizons,
(39:18):
but it has downsides as well, and may not be
for everyone, especially those for whom worrying and fetching come
naturally as coping mechanisms. Moreover, positive thinking may be counterproductive
if it leads us to blithely ignore life's dangers.
Speaker 1 (39:35):
Oh, I have so much to talk about on Friday.
I do too, But right now I'm gonna talk about Doles,
do it. Kathy writes, Dear Holly and Tracy, I've been
listening to the podcast for about seven years and have
thoroughly enjoyed doing so. The two of you obviously put
a lot of work into making the show fun as
well as educational. Thank you for your efforts. I was
listening to the behind the scenes on Cranberry's and heard
(39:58):
Holly bemoaning having to make large batches of Dole whip
in order to enjoy having Cranberry sauce with it. It just
so happens that as I was searching for popsicles for
my son. While compiling my grocery delivery order, I came
across snack sized portions of Dole Whip. I don't know
which store down south would carry it. It's giant here
in northern Virginia, but it's got to be somewhere. I
(40:18):
hope you can find it so you can joy your
treat anytime you want. Best Kathy, and that, of course
led me to look it up, and she's not wrong
at all. You can go to dolesunshine dot com and
you can put in there's a where to buy button,
and you can put in your zip code and it
will tell you. Like I was surprised at how many
(40:39):
places near me actually carry these little cups. Kroger, which
is a popular grocery store here, publics, even some Walgreens
have them. Like there are options, So I was incorrect
in saying that you could only get them in a
few places, because apparently now you can get dull Whip anywhere,
which is great. And then you can make your own
cranberry sauce if you want, or you can buy the
(41:00):
can stuff. I put it on top and enjoy the
experience and delight. Listen, I'm running out to do it
after we finished recording today. Thank you so much for
giving me that heads up, because I sure didn't need it.
If you would like to write to us, you can
do so at History Podcast at iHeartRadio dot com. You
can also subscribe to the podcast on the iHeartRadio app
(41:20):
or anywhere you listen to your favorite shows.
Speaker 2 (41:28):
Stuff you Missed in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio.
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
of iHeartRadio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly
Frye and I'm Tracy V.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Wilson.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
Oh, Tracy. We're in a time of year when a
lot of folks are kind of looking to the future
and thinking about the coming year and setting goals for themselves.
We've talked about it many times on the show. I
love doing that, I love the year turnover, and I
love a good resolution and a new planner. But this
also leads to a lot of people purchasing self help
books of one kind or another as they work on
(00:38):
those goals. And I am very fascinated by the self
help genre, so I thought it might be interesting to
talk about the ways self help books have evolved over time,
even before they were called self help books. But here's
the real real. I almost produced a very different episode.
I started out actually working on an episode about positive
(01:01):
psychology and the ways that having a positive mindset has
been touted as a life changing attribute throughout history. The idea, though,
is so often weaponized against people who are dealing with
illnesses or disabilities, or just difficult times in their lives.
As though if they just adopted a positive attitude, everything
would turn around. Look, positive thinking has benefits, But I
(01:26):
don't want any part of that other blogney. We will
talk a little bit about some of it, but researching
that as a single episode made me feel weird and
I didn't like it. So while there's the potential for
it to become a future episode if I find an
avenue into it, that doesn't make me feel lucky. That's
not what this is. This seemed like a more enjoyable
(01:48):
way to end the year. As I just said, there
are still some mentions in this episode of how people
need to be self reliant and upbeat. The advice of
the nineteenth century definitely came with that attitude that that
was all you needed, but it is much less than
the other topic would have given us. Some of them
do insist that people just need to laugh more, which
(02:11):
is also pretty useless. We're not dealing with that. We
are also not getting into things like workout books and
like how to change your body, because your body's fine
just the way it is. This is actually just to
set up expectations. A pretty breezy history through some of
the ancient books that offered relatively practical advice all the
(02:32):
way through to when of more how to approach was developed,
and we're noting a few prominent titles and standout developments
along the way. And I kind of use the guardrails
of focusing on writings that were mostly intended for kind
of general self help advice. Some of these writings are problematic,
but that's sort of secondary to the other. Rather Labrador
(02:55):
retriever esque takes on positivity, and I'm looking at you,
Douglas Fairbanks, and we'll talk about that. We're going to
talk about his book, but the most problematic one, which
does kind of fall into that it's all in your
mind and you can control your life with your mind.
Bucket is going to come last. So if even hearing
about it, even though ours is a pretty critical lens,
(03:17):
is not your thing, that will be where to jump,
and we will give you a heads up when we
get there. It was a very long intro to say
self help books are interesting, some are yucky, and we
will let you know before we get to the luckiest one.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
We're talking about the origins of self help writing are
often traced back to the ancient world, and there have
been texts full of advice written from the moment that
humans could write, it seems ancient Egyptian writing offered advice
on how to live a virtuous life, known as wisdom
literature or sabaiet. This is often framed as a hybrid
(03:55):
of narrative and didactic writing, contextualized as pieces of wisdom
or instruction being shared by a father to his son.
The most famous example is the Teachings of Tahoteps, sometimes
called the Maxims of tahoe Tep or the Instruction of Tahotep,
which was believed to have been written during the reign
(04:16):
of Jedkari a Sesesi in the twenty fourth century BCE.
Is often referenced as being the oldest book in the.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
World, and this book is laid out as the advice
that vizier Tahotep gives his son with the permission of
the Pharaoh regarding how things operate, so that he may be,
in the Pharaoh's words, a quote good example for the
children of the magistrates. These teachings offer a lot of
practical instructions, like how to win an argument. That section
(04:46):
states quote, if thou find an arguer talking, one that
is well disposed and wiser than thou, let thine arms fall,
bend thy back, Be not angry with him. If he
agree not with THEE, refrain from speaking e. Oppose him
not at any time when he speaketh. If he address
THEE as one ignorant of the matter, Thine humbleness shall
(05:07):
bear away his contentions. If thou find an arguer talking
thy fellow, one that is within thy reach, keep not
silent when he saith aught that is evil. So shalt
thou be wiser than he. Great will be the applause
on the part of the listeners, and thy name shall
be good in the knowledge of princes. If thou find
(05:28):
an arguer talking a poor man, that is to say,
not thine equal, be not scornful toward him because he
is lowly. Let him alone. Then shall he confound himself.
Question him not to please thine heart. Neither pour out
thy wrath upon him, that is before THEE. It is
shameful to confuse a mean mind. If thou be about
(05:49):
to do that which is in thine heart, overcome it
as a thing rejected of princes. So if they're smarter
than you, maybe supplicate. If they're your equal, call him out.
If they're saying bad stuff, and if there's somebody that
is less smart than you, don't be mean, which is
actually all pretty good advice. This book is also full
(06:09):
of instructions on things like keeping your wife happy, which
included keeping her well fed and clothed and gladdening her heart,
how to treat servants, which is pretty good advice. It's
about being kind and respectful of people, even if they
are technically under your employee or beneath you in the
hierarchy of society, obeying your elders, et cetera. And on learning,
(06:31):
it stated quote, be not proud because thou art learned.
But discourse with the ignorant man is with the sage.
For no limit can be set to skill. Neither is
there any craftsman that possesseth full advantages. Fair speech is
more rare than the emerald that is found by slave
maidens on the pebbles.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
Confucius, who lived in the sixth and fifth centuries BCE,
did not write any books himself, but as collected wisdom,
was committed to write in books like the Anaalects, and
could loosely be considered self help because of the advice
he offered on living a long and fulfilled life. Confucius
based his teachings on the idea that people are inherently good,
(07:15):
and that by studying and practicing virtue, the less noble
characteristics and instincts of human behavior could be controlled. Almost
everyone has probably been exposed to a number of quotes
attributed to Confucius, like quote everything has beauty, but not
everyone sees it, or quote in a country well governed,
(07:35):
poverty is something to be ashamed of, and a country
badly governed wealth is something to be ashamed of. When
most Westerners today think of Confucius, there's this tendency to
envision sort of a peaceful sage, just sort of issuing
inspiring or thought provoking phrases. But Confucius lived at a
contentious time in China's history, and he was involved in
(07:57):
political strife as he worked in service of the Duke
of lou It was after his exile, because of his
political ideas, that Confucius began teaching his ideals of mutual
respect in rural China.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
There is a really interesting aspect of Confucian wisdom, which
is it because it was written down by his students
after he died, we can't conclusively know that all of
his often quoted words were actually entirely his own, or
his own at all. Still, the Analects can be considered
an early self help guide.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
Ancient Greece also offers some examples of writing that could
loosely be labeled as self help. In On the Shortness
of Life, Stoic philosopher Seneca offered wisdom such as quote,
it's not that we have a short time to live,
but that we waste much of it. Life is long enough,
and it's been given to us in generous measure for
(08:51):
accomplishing the greatest things, if the whole of it is
well invested. But when life is squandered through soft and
careless living, and when it's spent on no worthwhile pursuit,
death finally presses and we realize that the life which
we didn't notice passing, has passed away. He also mentions
(09:12):
that wealth is often a burden, noting that men of
prosperity quote are choked by their own goods, giving readers
the lesson that it's better not to want so much stuff.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
Honestly, a lot of the advice Seneca gives in this
book is solid, and it's pretty inspiring. He cautioned against
postponing the things that you want to do, waiting for
some achievement marker, or for conditions to be exactly right
before you can rest, or play, or just enjoy your life.
He wrote quote, putting things off is the biggest waste
(09:45):
of life, robbing each day as it comes, and denying
the present with the promise of the future. The greatest
obstacle to living is expectancy.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
But these early examples of guiding people to improved living
we're very different in their focus from the way we
think about self help guides today. There was no attempt
to frame it as a cheat code for greater success.
These weren't about achieving or getting anything. They were primarily
about getting through life the best way you could and
being a better person, and that was so that you
(10:16):
could be a better member of society in most cases.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
Coming up, we will talk about how one of the
US founding fathers brought the idea of self help instruction
into the modern age. But first we will pause for
a sponsor break. Benjamin Franklin didn't publish a self help
(10:43):
book exactly, but in his autobiography he included a lot
of advice about the way he lived his life and
his own quest to continually improve, which he had systematized,
and this makes up chapter nine of that writing titled
Plan for Attaining Moral Perfection, and he shared that system
he developed, complete with his daily calendar and a set
(11:05):
of thirteen virtues he believed were important, and the way
he implemented his pursuit of those values in his life,
also with a calendar layout. He talks about how tricky
the pursuit of moral perfection can be, writing quote, I
wished to live without committing any fault. At any time.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
I would conquer all that either natural inclination, custom, or
company might lead me into. I knew or thought I
knew what was right and wrong. I did not see
why I might not always do the one and avoid
the other. But I soon found I had undertaken a
task of more difficulty than I had imagined. While my
(11:45):
care was employed in guarding against one fault, I was
often surprised by another. Habit took the advantage of inattention.
Inclination was sometimes too strong. For reason. I concluded at
length that the mere speculative can and that it was
our interest to be completely virtuous, was not sufficient to
(12:05):
prevent our slipping, and that the contrary habits must be
broken and good ones acquired and established before we can
have any dependence on a steady, uniform rectitude of conduct
for this purpose. I therefore contrived the following method.
Speaker 1 (12:22):
So the first step in his method was figuring out
a list of virtues that he thought would encompass the
entirety of improved morality if he pursued them. And he
came up with thirteen, and each of them had a
short explanatory phrase to elaborate on what that meant in
day to day life. We're going to talk in a
minute about why he chose thirteen. But the list of
(12:44):
thirteen virtues were One temperance, eat not to dullness, drink
not to elevation. Two silence, speak not but what may
benefit others or yourself. Avoid trifling conversations. Three order, Let
all all your things have their places. Let each part
of your business have its time. Four resolution resolve to
(13:07):
perform what you ought, perform without fail what you resolve.
Five Frugality. Make no expense but to do good to
others or yourself i e. Waste nothing. Six industry, lose
no time, be always employed in something useful. Cut off
all unnecessary actions. Seven Sincerity, use no hurtful deceit. Think
(13:32):
innocently and justly, and if you speak, speak accordingly. Eight
Justice wrong none by doing injuries or omitting the benefits
that are your duty. Nine moderation avoid extremes, forbear resenting
injuries so much as you think they deserve. Ten Cleanliness.
Tolerate no uncleanliness in body, clothes or habitation. Eleven Tranquility
(13:58):
be not disturbed at trifle or at accidents common or unavoidable.
Twelve chastity. Rarely use venery but for health or offspring,
never to dullness, weakness, or the injury of your own
or another's piece or reputation. Thirteen Humility imitate Jesus and Socrates. Listen,
(14:18):
we know Ben Franklin was a womanizer, so chastity was
very funny to me.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
Working on thirteen different virtues is a lot, and Franklin
knew this was something that would take ongoing work, so
he planned to work on it in a rotating system.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
Quote.
Speaker 2 (14:35):
My intention being to acquire the habitude of all these virtues.
I judged it would be well not to distract my
attention by attempting the whole at once. But to fix
it on one of them at a time, and when
I should be master of that, then to proceed to another,
and so on till I should have gone through the thirteen.
And as the previous acquisition of some might facilitate the
(14:58):
acquisition of certain, I arranged them with that view as
they stand above.
Speaker 1 (15:05):
So Ben Franklin describes in this autobiography setting up a
little notebook that is going to sound rather familiar to
anyone who has used a bullet journal or a similar
tracking journal. And he's very thorough in his description and
actually includes example charts so that readers can create their own.
He used one page to set up a chart with
(15:25):
seven columns for the days of the week across the top,
and then lines for each of the thirteen virtues going
down the page. So, using this chart, anytime he failed
to uphold a virtue, he would make a black mark
in the box that corresponded with the virtue and the
day of the week. And the goal was eventually to
have a completely clean chart.
Speaker 2 (15:46):
But for each week he picked one virtue as his
primary focus. The idea was that focusing on a single
virtue for a week would strengthen that virtue without having
to worry about any of the others. Then the second week,
when he focus on the next virtue, the first one
would already have been improved, and this was meant to
be a repeating system. He chose thirteen virtues because that
(16:08):
meant he could complete the cycle four times every year,
filling all fifty two weeks of the calendar. Franklin also
offered an example of how he allocated his time each day,
with blocks for preparing his day work in the morning
and afternoon, a midday break for eating and reading, and
a wrap up block from six to ten in which
(16:29):
he tidied up, had his dinner, enjoyed entertainment, and had
what he called his quote examination.
Speaker 1 (16:35):
Of the day. Regarding the results of his whole method,
he wrote, quote, I entered upon the execution of this
plan for self examination and continued it with occasional intermissions
for some time. I was surprised to find myself so
much fuller of faults than I had imagined, but I
had the satisfaction of seeing them diminish. And he's also
(16:56):
clear that this is not a system in which it's
really all that realistic to achieve perfection, writing quote, But
on the whole though I never arrived at the perfection
I had been so ambitious of obtaining, but fell far
short of it. Yet I was, by the endeavor a
better and a happier man than I otherwise should have
been if I had not attempted it. He also mentioned
(17:18):
that the virtue that gave him the most trouble was order.
Again a little surprising, perhaps made me giggle. Franklin also
shared various quotes that he would sometimes include in his
notebooks to inspire him throughout his efforts to improve himself.
Though Benjamin Franklin included the kind of material you'd associate
with self help books and his autobiography, it still wasn't
(17:41):
called self help. That term, which sometimes has a hyphen
in it and sometimes not, was coined by Scottish author
Samuel Smiles. His work in the field is sometimes described
as ushering in the modern genre of self help. Smiles
was born on December twenty third, eighteen twelve in Berwickshire, Scotland,
(18:01):
which is in the southeast of the country. His father
was also named Samuel, and his mother was named Janet,
and he had ten siblings. He attended school in Haddington
and became an apprentice to a physician's office at the
age of fourteen. When he was seventeen, he moved to Leith,
Scotland with one of the doctors that he apprenticed under,
(18:22):
and then he enrolled in Edinburgh University in eighteen twenty
nine to get his medical degree. When Samuel was twenty two,
big life events happened. He got his MD and his
father died while he was still grieving. He started his
own medical practice, but he didn't stay with it for
very long. Smiles had started writing for the Edinburgh Weekly
(18:42):
Chronicle as sort of a hobby, writing articles about politics,
and he found that he really enjoyed writing so much
that he published a book in eighteen thirty eight about
raising children. Yeah it's got a misleading title, which we'll
talk about misleading titles with him in a moment, called
physical education. But it's literally about like the physical body
(19:03):
of your child, not about doing sports like activities and exercise.
The same year that book came out, he also made
a career pivot to journalism because he wanted to write
full time and not be a doctor anymore, and he
moved to Leeds, England to try to build a career
in that field. He worked as editor of the Leeds
Times from eighteen thirty eight to eighteen forty two, and
(19:26):
while working at the paper in Leeds, which was considered
a progressive publication, he became a huge supporter of free trade.
Smiles didn't stay in the journalism game though. In eighteen
forty he met civil engineer George Stevenson, who is known
today by the nickname the Father of Railways. Stevenson will
probably be a future episode, but the short version is this,
(19:49):
he was highly instrumental in the development of the steam
locomotive and railways in England. When the two men met
at a railway opening, they hit it off and soon
Smiles was working for the railway as the secretary of
the Leeds in Thirsk Railway. That was in eighteen forty five.
He stayed with the company for more than twenty years,
working in various positions. During that time, he kept writing.
(20:11):
He continued to write political articles which were published in
Eliza Cook's journal. He published a biography of George Stevenson
in eighteen fifty seven. He would continue writing about accomplished
engineers and the engineering accomplishments that were ushering in the
industrial age for the rest of his life. But the
book that was a runaway hit was the one titled
(20:34):
Self Help with Illustrations of Character and Conduct, which came
out in eighteen fifty nine. Smiles had finished writing the
book before his Stevenson biography, but it had some difficulty
in finding an interested publisher. On the title page of
Self Help, Smiles included the Shakespeare quote from the play
(20:55):
Hamlet this above all, to thine own self be true,
and it must fallow, so as the night the day
than canst not then be false to any man. He
explained in his introduction how he ended up writing such
a book quote. The origin of this book may be
briefly told. Some fifteen years since the author was requested
(21:15):
to deliver an address before the members of some evening
classes which had been formed in a northern town for
mutual improvement under the following circumstances. He spent some time
at this point talking through the organic formation of this group,
how it started with a few young men who met
in one of their homes every week to share knowledge
in the hopes of improving themselves, and how that group
(21:37):
grew so large that they eventually needed to rent space
in a large apartment that had once been a cholera hospital.
When the group had one hundred members, they started asking
lecturers to come and give talks to the assembled young men,
and that's when they approached Smiles. Speaking in the third person,
(21:58):
Smiles continues the story as it were guard in his
involvement quote, he could not fail to be touched by
the admirable self helping spirit which they had displayed, And
though entertaining but slight faith and popular lecturing, he felt
that a few words of encouragement, honestly and sincerely uttered,
might not be without some good effect. And in this
(22:20):
spirit he addressed them on more than one occasion, citing
examples of what other men had done as illustrations of
what each might, in a greater or less degree, do
for himself, and pointing out that their happiness and well
being as individuals and afterlife must necessarily depend mainly upon themselves,
(22:40):
upon their own diligent self culture, self discipline, and self control,
and above all, on that honest and upright performance of
individual duty, which is the glory of manly character. So
Smiles admits in this writing that this wasn't new information
he was sharing in these lectures, just sharing some relatively
(23:01):
old fashioned advice about various things. But this topic of
improving yourself this way became a source of great interest
to him after the first lecture, and he began to
study it. And that's when he started giving additional lectures
to the group based on those studies, and he stood
firm on the idea that those old fashioned pieces of
advice were still valid. Writing quote, the object of the book,
(23:25):
briefly is to reinculcate these old fashioned but wholesome lessons
which perhaps cannot be too often urged. That youth must
work in order to enjoy, that nothing creditable can be
accomplished without application and diligence, That the student must not
be daunted by difficulties, but conquer them by patience and perseverance,
(23:45):
And that above all, he must seek elevation of character,
without which capacity is worthless and worldly success is not.
Most of these lectures, and subsequently the chapters of the
book are about the lives of men who achieved a
measure of perceived success or greatness in their lives, and
what qualities smiles thought led them to that success. A
(24:09):
lot of the messaging in the book is really about
self reliance. It opens by saying you can only count
on yourself, and that relying on others will make you weak.
Speaker 2 (24:18):
Quote. Help from without is often enfeebling in its effects,
but help from within invariably invigorates. Whatever is done for
men or classes, to a certain extent takes away the
stimulus and necessity of doing for themselves. And where men
are subjected to over guidance and over government, the inevitable
(24:39):
tendency is to render them comparatively helpless. He also kind
of goes on an anti government rant here stating quote Moreover,
it is every day becoming more clearly understood that the
function of government is negative and restrictive, rather than positive
and active. There was actually a little bit of misunderstanding
(24:59):
of the title of this book initially, and in an
eighteen ninety seven reprint of it, the new preface, written
by Smiles included the mention of this problem quote. In
one respect, the title of the book, which it is
now too late to alter, has proved unfortunate, as it
has led some who have judged it merely by the
title to suppose that it consists of a eulogy of selfishness,
(25:22):
the very opposite of what it really is, or at
least what the author intended it to be. In the
twentieth century, the self help genre in publishing just exploded
in popularity. And we'll talk about a celebrity self help
book right after we hear from some of the sponsors
that keep stuffiness in history class going. In nineteen seventeen,
(25:53):
we see the rise of celebrity self help writing when
Douglas Fairbanks published his book Laugh and Live. Fairbanks is
one of those people who believed being happy is a
choice for everyone, and he opens the book with that
message quote, there is one thing in this good old
world that is positively sure. Happiness is for all who
(26:15):
strive to be happy, and those who laugh are happy.
Everybody is eligible, You me, the other fellow. Happiness is
fundamentally a state of mind, not a state of body
and mind controls. Indeed, it is possible to stand with
one foot on the inevitable banana peel of life, with
(26:35):
both eyes peering into the great beyond, and still be happy, comfortable,
and serene, if we will even so much as smile.
This book is obviously overly simplistic, with a very upbeat
attitude to sell it. Fairbanks advise as readers to take
stock of themselves to really acknowledge their strength and their weaknesses,
(26:58):
which can be a good exercise.
Speaker 1 (27:00):
For most people.
Speaker 2 (27:02):
But the rest is sort of fluffy, talk about finding
your drive and your energy and keeping in good shape
and good humor. There's even a chapter titled building up
a Personality that mostly just suggests you focus on what
he calls sturdy qualities without really saying what those qualities are. Overall,
(27:22):
the whole thing reads like a very perky book written
by a man who has lived a charmed life.
Speaker 1 (27:29):
Yeah, it couldn't help but envision Douglas Fairbanks with his
pen being like, this is really brilliant, and it's like
because it's written from your life experience, which has been
you know, very privileged, very happy, very lucky. A man
named Dale Carnegie wrote one of the most long lived
self help books in nineteen thirty six, which was How
(27:51):
to Win Friends and Influence People. Carnegie was a Missouri
farm kid who tried out a number of jobs when
he reached adulthood, including say and acting, before he started
teaching public speaking classes, which was something that he just
naturally excelled at. Incidentally, his name was originally spelled car
(28:11):
na ge Y but he changed it to Carnegie, the
spelling that we would associate with Andrew Carnegie. He allegedly
told people that that was so that others would misspell
his name less because they never got his original spelling right.
But there are also some theories that he just wanted
to capitalize on the clout of Andrew Carnegie's name.
Speaker 2 (28:32):
I would say, even almost one hundred years later, probably
most people who have heard of Dale Carnegie think he
was related to Andrew Carnegie somehow. Yes, there's also a
whole episode of the podcast If Books Could Kill about
this book. If yees want to have more about it,
well we'll talk about as Starting in the nineteen twenties,
(28:54):
Dale Carnegie started writing books about public speaking, and they
were aimed at businessmen, but he continued to give in
person courses, and that's how he was discovered by an
employee from Simon and Schuster who thought Dale's instruction could
appeal to a general audience outside the business world. The
result of that chance meeting was how to win friends
and influence people. The book promised eight things in its
(29:19):
opening pages, stating that it would help the reader quote
get out of a mental rut, think new thoughts, acquire
new visions, discover new ambitions, make friends quickly and easily.
Increase your popularity. Win people to your way of thinking.
Increase your influence, your prestige, your ability to get things done,
(29:39):
handle complaints, avoid arguments, keep your human contact smooth and pleasant.
Become a better speaker, a more entertaining conversationalist. Arouse enthusiasm
among your associates. This particular book is largely a guide
map to positive interpersonal communication. Carnegie explains that getting along
(30:01):
with people in a way that also gets you what
you want largely comes down to a form of cooperation.
Speaker 1 (30:07):
Quote. There's one way under high Heaven to get anybody
to do anything. Did you ever stop to think of that? Yes,
just one way, and that is by making the other
person want to do it. Remember there is no other way.
Of course. You can make someone want to give you
his watch by sticking a revolver in his ribs. You
(30:28):
can make your employees give you cooperation until your back
is turned by threatening to fire them. You can make
a child do what you want it to do by
a whip or a threat. But these crude methods have
sharply undesirable repercussions. So his advice is to get people
on your side by giving them a feeling of importance.
(30:49):
But he states vehemently, quote, i am not suggesting flattery.
Far from it. I'm talking about a new way of life.
Let me repeat, I am talking about a new way
of life. And some of Carnegie's advice around this is
pretty sound. It really comes down to appreciating people and
acknowledging them.
Speaker 2 (31:07):
Obviously there's more, but that really is the root of
the whole ideology. Really, be interested in other people, be
a good listener, show respect even when you disagree, and
this struck a chord with readers, and it still does.
How to Win Friends remains popular. While researching this episode,
Hollywood a search for it on Amazon and found that
(31:28):
it was number eighteen on the top twenty most read
books of the week, and it's been on that list
for years. So this all sounds pretty upbeat, and there
are actually a lot of famous and successful people who
have credited Carnegie's work with inspiring them and making them
better leaders and achievers. But it does of course come
(31:48):
with the dark aspect of people using this for outright manipulation,
and there is one very extreme instance of this and
that's Charles Manson, who took a course based on Carnegie's
book while he was in prison in the nineteen fifties
for stealing a car, and then he used those teachings
from the book to assemble his followers known as the Family,
(32:10):
and got them to commit crimes, including murder, often by
making them believe it was all their own idea rather
than his. Carnegie wrote several other self help books along
the same lines, as How to Win Friends, including how
to develop self confidence and influence people by public speaking,
How to Enjoy your life and your job, How to
(32:31):
Stop Worrying and start living, and The Quick and Easy
Way to Effective Speaking. Yeah, all with kind of you know,
mixed reviews, plenty of criticism to go around for these.
But the last book that we're going to talk about
has also been popular for decades, but it has been
controversial from its earliest printing, and so has its author,
(32:54):
and that is Norman Vincent Peel's nineteen fifty two book
The Power of Positive Thinking. So this, this book is
the most problematic one that we're talking about today that
we mentioned at the very top of the show. So
Norman Vincent Peel was born May thirty first eighteen ninety
eight in Bowersville, Ohio. His father was a Methodist preacher,
and the family moved around to whatever place the church
(33:15):
assigned him to. Peel initially pursued a journalism career after
getting his degree from Ohio Wesleyan University, but he switched
to ministry like his father not long after. Peel was,
by all accounts, a compelling and really popular preacher, with
a talent for quickly growing the size of any congregation
he was assigned to. In the nineteen thirties, he started
(33:38):
a radio show called The Art of Living, and in
nineteen fifty one he founded the American Foundation of Religion
and Psychiatry. In a twenty twenty one writing, cultural anthropologist
doctor Holly Walters mentioned this foundation and why it has
often been criticized, writing quote. Much of the current American
ethos of toxic positivity can be traced back to the
(34:00):
nineteen thirties when two men, Norman Vincent Peelee, a Methodist
minister and Smiley Blanton, a psychoanalyst, established a religio psychiatric
clinic next door to their church. Their methods then for
faith based psychological healing tended towards the idea that mental
and emotional problems had their ultimate roots in a crisis
(34:21):
of belief, and that is also true of the power
of positive thinking and other books written by Peel. He
gives example after example of people who've turned their lives
completely around simply by changing their thinking, but that thinking
is always tied to Christian faith. The tenth rule in
his list of rules for living a life of positivity
(34:43):
was quote, believed that you can receive power from God.
This is an interesting contrast to the self help instruction
of Benjamin Franklin, who wrote in his writing about his
method to improve morality quote, though my scheme was not
wholly without religion, there wasn't no mark of any of
the distinguishing tenets of any particular sect. I had purposely
(35:07):
avoided them, for being fully persuaded of the utility and
excellency of my method, and that it might be serviceable
to people in all religions, and intending some time or
other to publish it. I would not have anything in
it that should prejudice anyone of any sect against it.
Speaker 1 (35:24):
So, in addition to Peel's work, including the specific need
for the Christian religion, which caused a lot of criticism.
The bigger issue that a lot of people had and
still have with Peel is that there's not much verifiable
information in his writing. His many examples of success stories
all tend to be anonymous. It's all very I know
(35:46):
a guy who had this problem, but he did what
I told him, and now he doesn't have that problem anymore.
There's no names, and there's no case studies, and there's
no documentation of anything. While this book is also still
in print, Pie's method has been condemned by mental health
professionals since it came out because it lacks evidence and
(36:07):
can frankly be damaging to people. Peel also caused problems
for himself politically. He was very active in Conservative politics.
He was against the New Deal.
Speaker 2 (36:17):
For example, when Adelie Stevenson was on the ballot as
vice president, Peel openly campaigned against him, claiming that because
he was divorced, he was ungodly and problematic. Stevenson famously
equipped and replied to finding out about it quote, I
find Paul appealing and Peel appalling, invoking the apostle Paul
(36:38):
to show that he was indeed a religious man. But
in nineteen sixty so eight years after his very popular
book came out, he aligned with a number of other
Protestant ministers against JFK in the presidential campaign, convinced that
if Kennedy won, he would be more loyal to the
Pope than to the United States, and this caused, understandably
(36:58):
a huge outrage and a lot of people called for
Peel to resign as a minister. He did not, though,
and in nineteen eighty four Ronald Reagan gave him the
Presidential Medal of Freedom. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (37:10):
Even at the time, people in his congregation were like, what, No,
that's a weird conspiracy theory, dude, Like, yeah, he really
thought that the Papal States were somehow going to suddenly
control the United States. Yeah, because Kennedy was Catholic. The
conspiracy theory that's still around. Yeah, And this is an
incredibly powerful person preaching this. But in the years since
(37:35):
these early self help books, there have been literally thousands
of books to offer how to advice for people eager
to improve their lives, and they have become much more specialized.
While Ben Franklin wrote about his struggle to keep the
virtue of order and maintain tidy surroundings, just as a
single paragraph in his book. There are, for example, so
(37:56):
many books today intended to teach people how to keep house.
Any of them are even specialized within that niche area.
So you can find self help books about cleaning that
are geared toward neurodivergent readers, cleaning books that focus on
transitioning to minimalism, cleaning books that are just for small spaces,
et cetera. You can get books on how to get
(38:17):
better sleep, how to improve your memory, how to train
for a marathon, how to do almost anything you can
think of, and listen, some of them actually have fairly
good advice. There are a lot of self help books
that are written by credentialed experts that are reviewed by
their peers that actually are not going to cause damage.
Most of the advice in those ones involves the reader
(38:38):
doing a lot of actual work and being tenacious to
achieve that desired result or to improve things. But because
people are always eager to find that magic answer that's
going to change everything they dislike about their lives really quickly,
there are also a lot of useless ones that are
just capitalizing on that need.
Speaker 2 (38:57):
Additionally, different people function differently when it comes to things
like positive versus negative Thinking. A twenty eleven article and
Scientific American written by Scott o' lillenfield and hal Arkwitz
notes that quote positive thinking surely comes with advantages. It
may encourage us to take needed risks to expand our horizons,
(39:18):
but it has downsides as well, and may not be
for everyone, especially those for whom worrying and fetching come
naturally as coping mechanisms. Moreover, positive thinking may be counterproductive
if it leads us to blithely ignore life's dangers.
Speaker 1 (39:35):
Oh, I have so much to talk about on Friday.
I do too, But right now I'm gonna talk about Doles,
do it. Kathy writes, Dear Holly and Tracy, I've been
listening to the podcast for about seven years and have
thoroughly enjoyed doing so. The two of you obviously put
a lot of work into making the show fun as
well as educational. Thank you for your efforts. I was
listening to the behind the scenes on Cranberry's and heard
(39:58):
Holly bemoaning having to make large batches of Dole whip
in order to enjoy having Cranberry sauce with it. It just
so happens that as I was searching for popsicles for
my son. While compiling my grocery delivery order, I came
across snack sized portions of Dole Whip. I don't know
which store down south would carry it. It's giant here
in northern Virginia, but it's got to be somewhere. I
(40:18):
hope you can find it so you can joy your
treat anytime you want. Best Kathy, and that, of course
led me to look it up, and she's not wrong
at all. You can go to dolesunshine dot com and
you can put in there's a where to buy button,
and you can put in your zip code and it
will tell you. Like I was surprised at how many
(40:39):
places near me actually carry these little cups. Kroger, which
is a popular grocery store here, publics, even some Walgreens
have them. Like there are options, So I was incorrect
in saying that you could only get them in a
few places, because apparently now you can get dull Whip anywhere,
which is great. And then you can make your own
cranberry sauce if you want, or you can buy the
(41:00):
can stuff. I put it on top and enjoy the
experience and delight. Listen, I'm running out to do it
after we finished recording today. Thank you so much for
giving me that heads up, because I sure didn't need it.
If you would like to write to us, you can
do so at History Podcast at iHeartRadio dot com. You
can also subscribe to the podcast on the iHeartRadio app
(41:20):
or anywhere you listen to your favorite shows.
Speaker 2 (41:28):
Stuff you Missed in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio.
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Stuff You Missed in History Class News
Hosts And Creators
Holly Frey
Tracy Wilson
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