Oliver Napoleon Hill (October 26, 1883 – November 8, 1970) was an American self-help author. He is best known for his book Think and Grow Rich (1937), which is among the best-selling self-help books of all time.[1][2] Hill's works insisted that fervid expectations are essential to improving one's life.[3][4] Most of his books were promoted as expounding principles to achieve "success".
Hill is a controversial figure. Accused of fraud, modern historians also doubt many of his claims, such as that he met Andrew Carnegie and that he was an attorney.
Life and career
Childhood
Hill was born in a one-room cabin near the Appalachian town of Pound in southwest Virginia.[5] His parents were James Monroe Hill and Sarah Sylvania (Blair), and he was the grandson of James Madison Hill and Elizabeth (Jones). His grandfather came to the United States from England and settled in southwestern Virginia in 1847.[6] His father was an dentist, at first unofficially and then with a license.[7]
Hill's mother died when he was nine years old, and his father remarried two years later to Martha. His stepmother was a good influence for him: "Hill's stepmother, the widow of a school principal, civilized the wild-child, Napoleon, making him go to school and attend church."[7] At the age of 13, Hill began writing as a "mountain reporter", initially for his father's newspaper.[8] At the age of fifteen, he married a local girl who had accused him of fathering her child; the girl later recanted the claim, and the marriage was annulled.[9]
Early career
At the age of seventeen, Hill graduated from high school and moved to Tazewell, Virginia, to attend business school. In 1901, Hill accepted a job working for the lawyer Rufus A. Ayers, a coal magnate and former Virginia attorney general. Author Richard Lingeman wrote that Hill received this job after arranging to keep confidential the death of a black bellhop whom the previous manager of the mine had accidentally shot while drunk.[7]
Hill left his coal mine management job soon afterward and enrolled in law school before withdrawing owing to a lack of funds. Later in life, Hill would use the title of "Attorney of Law", although Hill's official biography notes that "there is no record of his having actually performed legal services for anyone."[10]
In 1903, Hill married for the second time to Edith Whitman; in 1905 their child Edith Whitman Hill was born. Their marriage was a fraught one due to Hill's alleged physical abuse of his wife and daughter in addition to his frequenting of prostitutes.[11]
Failed business ventures and charges of fraud
Hill relocated to Mobile, Alabama, in 1907 and co-founded the Acree-Hill Lumber Company. In October 1908, the Pensacola Journal reported that the company was facing bankruptcy proceedings and charges of mail fraud for purchasing lumber from outside Mobile, from other counties in Alabama and Florida, and selling it below cost, thereby failing to generate a return.[12]
His wife Edith filed for divorce in 1908; at the proceedings Hill's friends and business partners testified to his affairs with prostitutes. It is sometime in 1908 that Hill claims his pivotal conversation with Andrew Carnegie happened; however, there is no record of the two meeting, and he spent much of the year on the run from the authorities.[11]
Following the exposure of his fraud in Alabama, Hill fled to Washington, DC, where he dropped Oliver as his first name and began going by Napoleon Hill. In 1909 he founded the Automobile College of Washington. The college assembled cars for the Carter Motor Corporation, which declared bankruptcy in early 1912; students were not paid for their labor.[11] During April 1912, the automobile magazine Motor World accused Hill's college of being a scam and derided its marketing materials as "a joke to anyone of average intelligence".[13] Following the bankruptcy of the Carter Motor Corporation, Hill pivoted the organization to teaching people how to sell cars rather than make them. Students were incentivized to themselves sell Automobile College of Washington courses on which they would earn a commission. In practice, the focus was on signing up more students, not in learning how to sell cars. In this form, it resembled a modern multi-level marketing company.[11]
During June 1910, Hill married Florence Elizabeth Horner,[14] with whom he had three sons: James, born in 1911; Napoleon Blair, born in 1912; and David, born in 1918.[15] Hill would postpone their honeymoon until 1919.[16] Horner was in high school when they met and was from a wealthy West Virginia family. Despite investment from her family, the Automobile College of Washington closed in 1912. He subsequently moved to Chicago and accepted a job with the La Salle Extension University, before co-founding the Betsy Ross Candy Shop. Following his move to Chicago, Hill began claiming that he was a lawyer. Hill was soon forced out of the candy shop by his partners and had left La Salle within a year of starting.[11]
In September 1915, he established the George Washington Institute of Advertising, where he intended to teach principles of success and self-confidence. On June 4, 1918, the Chicago Tribune reported that the state of Illinois had issued two warrants for his arrest, charging him with violating blue sky laws by fraudulently attempting to sell shares of his school at a $100,000 capitalization, despite the school's possessing assets appraised only at $1,200.[17]
In 1917, Hill threatened the Illinois Central Railroad with a lawsuit due to low lighting in their cars allegedly making him need glasses. The George Washington Institute was unaccredited and closed in 1918 following allegations of fraud made by students. During this time, Florence and their children were living with her family in West Virginia.[11]
Following the closure of the George Washington Institute, Hill embarked on other business ventures, among them the personal magazines Hill's Golden Rule and Napoleon Hill's Magazine.[18] In 1919 the Federal Trade Commission brought charges against Hill and Hill's Golden Rule for fraudulent advertising and laundering funds meant for a veteran's charity into a fraudulent oil stock scheme. Hill claimed that it was in 1918 following the collapse of GWI that Woodrow Wilson personally reached out to Hill for his help winning the First World War; Hill claimed that Wilson offered him large sums for his aid but that he did not accept any payment for his work because he was a patriot. He claimed that he was so important and involved in the war effort that he had the power to veto the President. Hill claimed to have participated intimately in the negotiation of the armistice with Germany. These claims are not believed to be true.[11]White House records include no reference to his ever being there.[19]
In 1922, he opened the Intra-Wall Correspondence School, a charitable foundation intended to provide educational materials to prisoners in Ohio. The foundation was directed by, among others, check forger and former convict Butler Storke, who would be sent back to prison only a year later. According to Hill's official biography, it was during this period that hundreds of documents proving Hill's association with various famous figures were destroyed in a Chicago storage fire.[18] Intra-Wall Correspondence School primarily sold Hill's Golden Rule and correspondence courses. In 1923 it was exposed by local newspapers as a scam. Following the murder of Donald Mellett, he promoted a lecture tour based on their acquaintance; this event would later become a significant part of his personal mythos, with Hill claiming to have been the target of the same assassins.[11]
Hill lost control over Hill's Golden Rule to a group of disgruntled employees. Hill attempted to get revenge against one of the employees by reporting them to the FBI as a spy.[7]
Hill founded the Peptomists and the Co-Operative Club which advertised themselves as business organizations in the style of the rotary club.[7]
The Law of Success
During 1928, Hill relocated to Philadelphia and persuaded a Connecticut-based publisher to publish his eight-volume work The Law of Success (1925). The book was Hill's first major success, allowing Hill to adopt an opulent lifestyle. By 1929, he had already bought a Rolls-Royce and a 600-acre (240-hectare) property in the Catskill Mountains,[7] with the aid of some lenders.[20]
The beginning of the Great Depression, however, affected Hill's finances adversely, forcing his Catskills property into foreclosure before the end of 1929.[15] He went broke, forcing his wife's family to pay for the expenses of Florence and her children.
Hill's next published work, The Magic Ladder to Success (1930), proved to be a commercial failure. During the next few years, Hill traveled through the country, returning to his habits from the prior decade of initiating various short-lived business ventures. He was involved in the production of the first Mormon film Corianton: A Story of Unholy Love, which collapsed after investors accused Hill of malfeasance. Hill claimed to have been an advisor to Franklin D. Roosevelt during this time. He claimed to have coined the President's famous phrase "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself."
In 1935, Hill's wife Florence filed for and received a divorce in Florida as divorce was illegal at that time in West Virginia. In 1936 Hill met Rosa Lee Beeland when she attended one of his lectures; he proposed the next day, and they were soon married. Unable to afford a place of their own, he and Rosa moved in with Hill's son Blair in New York City. Following a few months of this living arrangement Blair's wife Vera left due to Napoleon Hill's harassment and abuse with Blair following soon after. Before leaving Blair gave his father and Rosa a loan to continue work on a new book, Think and Grow Rich.[11]
Think and Grow Rich
In 1937, Hill published the bestselling book Think and Grow Rich, which became Hill's best-known work. Hill's new wife Rosa Lee Beeland contributed substantially to the authoring and editing of Think and Grow Rich. Hill's biographers would later say this book sold 20 million copies over 50 years, although as Richard Lingeman remarks in his brief biography, "Alice Payne Hackett's 70 Years of Best Sellers suggests the number was considerably less."[7]
Wealthy once more, Hill resumed his lavish lifestyle and purchased a new estate in Mount Dora, Florida. Napoleon and Rosa become involved with The Royal Fraternity of the Master Metaphysicians, a cult led by James Bernard Schafer, which regarded Think and Grow Rich as a religious text. Napoleon became the godfather of "Baby Jene", a child the cult had adopted and claimed to be raising in such a way that she would be immortal. In 1941 the child was returned to her biological mother. After being arrested and convicted in 1942, Schafer claimed that Napoleon had scammed him.[11]
The couple divorced around 1940. With much of the wealth from the book going to Rosa, Napoleon returned to his pursuit of success.[15] Rosa proceeded to marry her divorce lawyer. Hill and Rosa never repaid Blair for the $300 loan; indeed, Rosa taunted Blair about it.[11] Rosa would later write a self help book entitled "How to Attract Men and Money."[7]
Starting again
In 1941 Hill published Mental Dynamite, but it was a commercial failure.[11]
Hill met Annie Lou Norman, who was 47 years old, where he rented a room from her. They married in 1943 and relocated to California. Hill went on the lecture circuit once again.[15] In 1947 he briefly hosted a show on KFWB Radio in Los Angeles. In 1952 he launched a new scam selling courses about success in Missouri. The scam soon collapsed, and he set up a firm called Napoleon Hill Associates to sell courses with W. Clement Stone. In the 1960s Hill and Stone fell out. Hill turned to selling his course Science of Success through franchises. In 1963 he founded the Napoleon Hill Foundation.[11]
Hill's "Philosophy of Achievement", offered as a formula for rags-to-riches success, was published initially in the 1928 multi-volume study course entitled The Law of Success,[21] a rewrite of a 1925 manuscript. Hill identified freedom, democracy, capitalism, and harmony as being among the foundations to his "Philosophy of Achievement". He asserted that without these foundations, great personal achievements would not be possible.[22][23]
Hill claimed his philosophy was superior to those of others and that its principles were responsible for the successes of Americans. Hill blamed failure on such emotions as fear and selfishness.[24]
A "secret" of achievement was discussed in Think and Grow Rich, but Hill did not explicitly identify this secret in the book, insisting that readers would benefit most if they discovered it for themselves.
In the introduction, Hill states of the "secret" that Andrew Carnegie "carelessly tossed it into my mind" and that it inspired Manuel L. Quezon of the Philippine Islands to "gain freedom for his people". Although he mentions a "burning desire for money" repeatedly throughout the book, he suggests that avarice is not his "secret" at all. Indeed, in The Law of Success, published nine years earlier, he identifies the secret as the Golden Rule, insisting that only by working harmoniously and cooperating with other individuals or groups of individuals and thereby creating value and benefit for them can one create sustainable achievement for oneself.[citation needed]
Hill returned to the topic of a secret in a 1967 book, where he explicitly stated:
Anything the human mind can believe, the human mind can achieve. That is the Supreme Secret.... This is the secret known in bygone times; this is the secret which governs present-day accomplishment; this is the secret which will follow man to the stars. This is the secret of the ages.
—Napoleon Hill, Grow Rich!: With Peace of Mind, Chapter 14
He presents the notion of a "Definite Major Purpose" as a challenge to his readers to ask themselves: "In what do I truly believe?" According to Hill, "98%" of people have few or no strong beliefs, which made their achieving success unlikely.[25]
Hill declares that the life story of his son Blair is an inspiration to him, claiming that despite being born without ears, Blair had grown up able to hear and speak almost normally. Hill reports that his son, during his last year of college, read chapter two of the manuscript of Think and Grow Rich, discovered Hill's secret "for himself", and then inspired "hundreds and thousands" of people who could neither listen nor speak.[26]
From 1952 to 1962, Hill taught his Philosophy of Personal Achievement—Lectures on Science of Success in association with W. Clement Stone.[27] During 1960, Hill and Stone co-authored the book Success Through A Positive Mental Attitude. Norman Vincent Peale is quoted saying that Hill and Stone "have the rare gift of inspiring and helping people" and that he owes "them both a personal debt of gratitude for the helpful guidance I have received from their writings."[28]
The book is listed in John C. Maxwell's A Lifetime "Must Read" Books List.[29]
Hill claimed insight into racism, slavery, oppression, failure, revolution, war, and poverty, asserting that overcoming these difficulties using his "Philosophy of Achievement" was the responsibility of every human.[25]
Influence of famous people
Later in life, Hill claimed that the turning point of his life had been a 1908 assignment to interview the industrialist and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie. At that time, Carnegie was among the most powerful men in the world. Hill wrote, after Carnegie's death in 1918, that Carnegie had actually met with him at that time and challenged him to interview wealthy people to discover a simple formula for success,[30] and that he had then interviewed many successful people of the time. The authenticity of many of Hill's claims has been widely disputed. Napoleon Hill's collaboration with Andrew Carnegie has never been confirmed either by Carnegie himself or the Carnegie estate, and Hill allegedly only started making claims of interviewing Carnegie after he had died. Aside from Hill's writings, there are no accounts of the meeting taking place. Carnegie biographer David Nasaw stated that he "found no evidence of any sort that Carnegie and Hill ever met" or "that the book was authentic."[11]
The acknowledgments in his 1928 multi-volume work The Law of Success,[21] listed forty-five of those he had studied, "the majority of these men at close range, in person", like those to whom the book set was dedicated: Andrew Carnegie, Henry Ford, and Edwin C. Barnes (an associate of Thomas Edison). Hill reported that Carnegie had given him a letter of introduction to Ford,[31] who Hill said then introduced him to Alexander Graham Bell, Elmer R. Gates, Thomas Edison, and Luther Burbank.[32]
Aside from these, Hill's other claims have been called into question. There is no known evidence that he aided President Wilson to negotiate Germany's surrender in World War I; that he helped President Roosevelt write his fireside chats; or that he was an attorney. There are no known records of Hill's meetings with the famous men he claimed to have interviewed besides for a brief photo op with Edison.[16]
Alleged spirit visitations
Hill openly described visits from spirits in chapter 12 of his book Grow Rich! With Peace of Mind (1967). He described them as unseen friends, unseen watchers, strange beings, and the Great School of Masters that had been guarding him, and who maintain a "school of wisdom". Hill states that the "Master" spoke to him audibly, revealing secret knowledge. Hill further insists that the Masters "can disembody themselves and travel instantly to any place they choose to acquire essential knowledge or to give knowledge directly, by voice, to anyone else."
Grow Rich! With Peace of Mind was allegedly influenced by Hill's spirit voices; Hill cites the "Master", writing: "Much of what he said already has been presented to you in the chapters of this book or will follow in other chapters." In Chapter 14 of his book Think and Grow Rich (1937), he openly talks about his "invisible counselors" with whom he discusses various areas of his life. Hill refers to these meetings with his counselors as being real because he consistently told himself they were real, a principle he refers to as "autosuggestion". Hill does admit the talks were only real to him because of his imagination but professes his belief that the "dominating thoughts and desires" of one's mind make those thoughts real.[33]
Death
Napoleon Hill died aged 87 on November 8, 1970.[34] He was worth about a million dollars.[16]
Hill has been seen as inspiring later self-help works, such as Rhonda Byrne's The Secret. Gizmodo has called him "the most famous conman you've probably never heard of".[11]
Napoleon Hill Foundation
The Napoleon Hill Foundation is a nonprofit foundation that promotes the teachings of Napoleon Hill. Following the death of Napoleon in 1970, the foundation and his widow Annie Lou were embroiled in a protracted court battle over the estate, which lasted into the 1980s. The foundation maintains a private archive of Hill's papers. It awards the annual Napoleon Hill Award. The foundation continues to sell Hill's books, courses, and leadership certificates.[11]
In 1995 the authorized biography of Hill's life, A Lifetime of Riches, was released by Michael J. Ritt Jr. (the executive director of the foundation) and Kirk Landers, which came to a number of controversial conclusions.[7]
Andrew Carnegie was a Scottish-American industrialist and philanthropist. Carnegie led the expansion of the American steel industry in the late 19th century and became one of the richest Americans in history. He became a leading philanthropist in the United States, Great Britain, and the British Empire. During the last 18 years of his life, he gave away around $350 million, almost 90 percent of his fortune, to charities, foundations and universities. His 1889 article proclaiming "The Gospel of Wealth" called on the rich to use their wealth to improve society, expressed support for progressive taxation and an estate tax, and stimulated a wave of philanthropy.
Aberfoyle is a village in the historic county and registration county of Perthshire and the council area of Stirling, Scotland. The settlement lies 27 miles northwest of Glasgow.
Kirk Douglas was an American actor and filmmaker. After an impoverished childhood, he made his film debut in The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946) with Barbara Stanwyck. Douglas soon developed into a leading box-office star throughout the 1950s, known for serious dramas, including westerns and war films. During his career, he appeared in more than 90 films and was known for his explosive acting style. He was named by the American Film Institute the 17th-greatest male star of Classic Hollywood cinema.
Self-help or self-improvement is a self-directed improvement of oneself—economically, physically, intellectually, or emotionally—often with a substantial psychological basis.
Ivy Ledbetter Lee was an American publicity expert and a founder of modern public relations. Lee is best known for his public relations work with the Rockefeller Family.
William Clement Stone was an American businessman, philanthropist and New Thought self-help book author.
Think and Grow Rich is a book written by Napoleon Hill and Rosa Lee Beeland released in 1937 and promoted as a personal development and self-improvement book. He claimed to be inspired by a suggestion from business magnate and later-philanthropist Andrew Carnegie. However, there is no evidence that the two ever met.
Positive mental attitude (PMA) is a concept first introduced in 1937 by Napoleon Hill in the book Think and Grow Rich. The book never actually uses the term, but discusses the importance of positive thinking as a contributing factor of success. Napoleon, who along with W. Clement Stone, founder of Combined Insurance, later wrote Success Through a Positive Mental Attitude, defines positive mental attitude as comprising the 'plus' characteristics represented by words as faith, integrity, hope, optimism, courage, initiative, generosity, tolerance, tact, kindliness and good common sense.
Jesse Hilton Stuart was an American writer, school teacher, and school administrator who is known for his short stories, poetry, and novels as well as non-fiction autobiographical works set in central Appalachia. Born and raised in Greenup County, Kentucky, Stuart relied heavily on the rural locale of northeastern Kentucky for his writings. Stuart was named the poet laureate of Kentucky in 1954.
The law of attraction is the New Thought spiritual belief that positive or negative thoughts bring positive or negative experiences into a person's life. The belief is based on the idea that people and their thoughts are made from "pure energy" and that like energy can attract like energy, thereby allowing people to improve their health, wealth, or personal relationships. There is no empirical scientific evidence supporting the law of attraction, and it is widely considered to be pseudoscience or religion couched in scientific language. This belief has alternative names that have varied in popularity over time, including manifestation and lucky girl syndrome.
The Science of Getting Rich is a book written by the New Thought Movement writer Wallace D. Wattles and published in 1910 by the Elizabeth Towne Company. The book is still in print. According to USA Today, the text is "divided into 17 short, straight-to-the-point chapters that explain how to overcome mental barriers, and how creation, rather than competition, is the hidden key to wealth attraction."
Elmer R. Gates (1859–1923), the son of Jacob and Phoebe Goetz, was an American scientist and inventor.
Joseph Denis Murphy was an Irish author and New Thought minister, ordained in Divine Science and Religious Science.
Earl Nightingale V was an American radio speaker and author, dealing mostly with the subjects of human character development, motivation, and meaningful existence. He was the voice during the early 1950s of Sky King, the hero of a radio adventure series, and was a WGN radio program host from 1950 to 1956. Nightingale was the author of The Strangest Secret, which economist Terry Savage has termed "…one of the great motivational books of all time."
The Last Lecture is a 2008 New York Times best-selling book co-authored by Randy Pausch —a professor of computer science, human-computer interaction, and design at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania—and Jeffrey Zaslow of the Wall Street Journal. The book extends the September 2007 lecture by Pausch entitled "Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams". The Last Lecture is renowned for its witty humor, despite encompassing Pausch's farewell to his loved ones due to his terminal pancreatic cancer. In the book, through his past experiences, Pausch attempts to lend advice to his children that they may need once he has passed. He recounts memories growing up and important people who have been vital in "achieving his childhood dreams."
The Master Key System is a personal development book by Charles F. Haanel that was originally published as a 24-week correspondence course in 1912, and then in book form in 1916. The ideas it describes and explains come mostly from New Thought philosophy. It was one of the main sources of inspiration for Rhonda Byrne's film and book The Secret (2006).
Outwitting the Devil is a work of non-fiction that was written in 1938 by Napoleon Hill, which was considered too controversial to be published in its era. The book is written as an interview between Hill and the devil, wherein Hill attempts to uncover the secrets to freedom and success by evaluating the greatest obstacles that humans face in order to attain their personal goals in life. Outwitting the Devil was released by Sterling Publishing in June, 2011, with annotations by Sharon Lechter.
A mastermind group is a peer-to-peer mentoring group used to help members solve their problems with input and advice from the other group members. The concept was coined in 1925 by author Napoleon Hill in his book The Law of Success, and described in more detail in his 1937 book Think and Grow Rich. In his books, Hill discussed the idea of the Master Mind, which referred to two or more people coming together in harmony to solve problems.
Robert Corlett Proctor was a Canadian, new age self-help author and lecturer. He was best known for his New York Times best-selling book You Were Born Rich (1984) and being a contributor to the film The Secret (2006). Proctor's teachings maintained the idea that a positive self-image is critical for obtaining success, frequently referencing the pseudoscientific belief of the law of attraction.
↑ Hill, Napoleon (1937). Think and Grow Rich. Chicago, Illinois: Combined Registry Company. ISBN1-60506-930-2. A similar quote regarding Thomas Edison is on page 230.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: postscript (link)
↑ "President of Lumber Company Is Missing". The Pensacola Journal. Pensacola, Florida. October 17, 1908 – via Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers, Library of Congress.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
Literatureportal 
