Dale Carnegie
Dale Carnegie (1888-1955)

Inducted - Wednesday, September 13, 2006
Sculptor: Sabra Tull Meyer
Speaker: Rod Jetton

Where is Dale Carnegie in the Hall of Famous Missourians?

Dale Carnegie was a legendary author, educator and self-development pioneer.
He began his career as a salesman in the Midwest after being educated at what is now the University of Central Missouri in Warrensburg, where he excelled in debate and public speaking.

After settling in New York, his career took off. During 1912, he began teaching public speaking classes at the local YMCA. Soon he was conducting classes all along the East Coast – classes that developed into the innovative and internationally known Dale Carnegie Course®, a revolutionary instructional program in communication and human relations. That program has expanded into a worldwide training network involving millions of people in more than 70 countries.

Finding no textbooks that suited his course topics, Carnegie wrote booklets for his classes. He expanded these publications into one of the best-selling books of all time “How to Win Friends and Influence People,” which is regarded as the first modern self help book and remains popular today. He became a prominent author, and more than 50 million copies of his works have been printed and published in 38 languages.

Carnegie was a syndicated newspaper columnist, radio personality, prominent lecturer, and sought after counselor to world leaders. He was named one of Life magazine’s “100 Most Important Americans of the 20th Century.”