American Business History

By Author: Robert Ferguson
Total Articles: 1
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Success literature appeared at the beginning of the twentieth century helping thousands of people to apply specific rules in order to succeed in their life. Several authors gained popularity for writing and promoting success literature. Dale Carnegie and his book How to Win Friends and Influence People is one of the most popular examples of such literature. This book has many editions, and it is a table book for many prominent businesspersons of America and around the world. This book is written in such a manner that it is very easy to comprehend it, and it gives the impression as if the author of this book is a reader’s friend. The principles and strategy orient the ordinary public that have a chance of a successful life and the only thing they have to do is to read the book and start applying its principles in their own life. The success literature appeared at the moment when it was the most necessary for the American society because it could help people, who were born free and independent of any social bonds, to use their inner abilities in order to succeed in life that gave hundreds of opportunities.
The concept ...
... of late modernity, which is the period right after the industrial revolution in America, characterize the society as a new age community. Several fundamental changes occurred in American society at the time of transition from industrial to a post-industrial economy. Their essence was to ensure that traditional social institutions such as marriage, religion, social classes, and many others did not restrain the freedom of choice of the individuals in post-war America. During the time of traditional capitalism, an ordinary person had always been a part of some large social groups that determined his worldview and decision-making process. They had included such strata as the working class, the bourgeoisie or the nobility, as well as the institutions of family, church community and others. On the contrary, the late modern individual became completely separated from these large groups and started his new independent social life. The people became free of all social restraints, but it imposed more obligations, worries and duties on a person. New freedom led to the tremendous growth of opportunities, especially in the light of new religious views, education and career prospects. Previously, it had been difficult for most people to go beyond the boundaries of social class hierarchy, whereas in the post-industrial society career choice was no longer determined by birth. It was facilitated by the change of attitude to higher education, which became public and necessary but not sufficient condition for a prosperous career. Especially in contrast to the previous era, when obtaining university education had guaranteed a comfortable existence.
New age determined the emergence of the cult of self-development and self-realization in the modern world. Whereas earlier, every person had been born to live a life determined by social class, in the period of modernity they had an opportunity to define and build their life and future. At that moment, every person had tremendous opportunities, but for their realization, he/she had to participate in a grueling competition with millions of other developing free individuals.
The emergence of the new cult of self-development determined the appearance of such phenomena as Human potential movement getting its popularity during the New Age. Dale Carnegie had published his book even before that time, and people had an opportunity to use the prominent ideas in order to become more polite in everyday communication making more friends and leading themselves to success. The book aimed to train people to build their business and life using their creativity, uniqueness and other personal qualities. The target audience of the book How to Win Friends and Influence People was the middle aged and young people who started or continued their life in a new society and needed some hints on how to improve their everyday activities and communication in the first place.
Dale Carnegie defines success as the creation of own business or building a professional career at a company or organization by way of building a network of good ties and relations with a great number of people. Through his book, he stresses that the most important thing that every person has to do is to become friendlier to the world and to the surrounding people making the friendly relation with as many of them as possible. Such a strategy can help significantly and even unexpectedly at the most difficult period of life. Moreover, a positive attitude supposes to create productive and positive decisions that make the basis for a successful future. Dale Carnegie stresses that the main character trait that helps every person is the ability to communicate easily and spontaneously with any person, despite his social class and the professional position. He promotes equality among all people and gives a number of examples when such a simple and easy-going attitude has helped people to reach the desired aims easily and has led them to success. Moreover, a positive attitude, according to Dale Carnegie, is the basis of success in all spheres including professional, business and family life. According to this book, a young person, as well as a person of any other age, should be open to new ideas, meeting new people, and becoming a person who values others more than his/her own interests. The reason behind this idea is that such actions inevitably lead to success, and eventually the right person who has social influence and ties will become successful.
During the New Age, the most unprotected layers of society that required significant help and explanation on further actions included housekeepers, young men that wanted to build their small businesses, women that wanted to develop their own small business, all of them were the target audience of this book written by Dale Carnegie. The list of devices that the author made in his book could be useful for all layers and social classes of the era when the book was published. Although the pieces of advice were useful for business and personal life, building a successful business could be rather problematic and hard in those times even with the help of these rules. Firstly, despite the tendency toward self-development and having a number of chances to succeed, the most important factor that determined the success of any business was the start capital, and most people that we're reading this book did not have this component. Starting a small business required thorough planning, surveys, researches in the field and marketing plan that included target audience orientation. All the above-mentioned factors were professional and specific requirements. A book and its useful advice on self-development could not develop professional elements. However, it could help many people to develop a positive attitude to life and make their family relations more friendly and close.
In conclusion, the book How to Win Friends and Influence People remains one of the most popular examples of success literature of the twentieth century. The American society of the late modernity period lacked the information about how to develop specific personal qualities and how to establish a positive attitude, how to communicate with others in the best way. The book, written by Dale Carnegie, included all this information and presented a rational source of samples, tested in real life and proved by examples. The book is an easy reading nowadays and remains one of the best sources available to read in order to practice effective communication and a positive attitude towards the world and other people. The book was very successful at the time of its publication and remains a good example of the success literature of the USA that is famous all over the world now.
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