by Megan Hustad
At one point in time, Lord Chesterfield was a household name in the United States—at least amongst the moneyed and highly educated. He comes up in Emily Post’s books (she herself was once dubbed “Lady Chesterfield”), and you find scattered reference to him in advice books through the 1940s or so. Chesterfield’s Letters to His Son was a posthumously published collection of missives in which an English nobleman, Lord Chesterfield, instructed his boy on how to endear himself to the powers that be. (The boy was apparently quite ham-fisted and awkward, and due to the circumstances of his birth—he was the result of an extramarital affair—couldn’t count on steady patronage like his father had.) The original publication includes a lot of pointers for someone who was going to be rubbing elbows with royalty and assorted hangers-on. The American Chesterfield merely retained the passages on all that was necessary to make a person “well received in the world/‘ and its central argument was that poise and grace made every difference in your life chances. It may be hard to imagine now, but this was highly controversial stuff in its day. (Because in Puritan America and beyond, the only thing that was supposed to determine your chances was, of course, your moral standing and the grace of God.)
Haden-Guest, Anthony. The Paradise Program: Travels Through Muzak, Hilton, Coca-Cola, Texaco, Walt Disney; and other World Empires. New York: William Morrow, 1973.
Hagberg, Janet O. Real Power: Stages of Personal Power in Organizations. Revised edition. Salem, Wisconsin: Sheffield Publishing Company, 1994.
Hamper, Ben. Rivethead: Tales from the Assembly Line. New York: Warner Books, 1991.
Harris, Frank. Latest Contemporary Portraits. New York: The Macaulay Company, 1927.
Frank Harris, an Irish journalist of some renown in his day, visits with VIPs and records his impressions.
Harris, Thomas A. I’m OK—You’re OK. New York: Avon Books, 1973.
Head, Edith, with Joe Hyams. How to Dress for Success. New York: Random House, 1967.
See chapter 6.
Hebdige, Dick. Subculture: The Meaning of Style. London: Methuen & Co., 1979.
Hechinger, Grace and Fred M. Teen-Age Tyranny. New York: William Morrow and Company, 1962.
See chapter 6.
Herts, B. Russell. Depreciations. New York: Albert & Charles Boni, 1914. A strange little book that styled itself as a defense of “Art and Affectation.” Herts’s main beef was with what he perceived as a fetish for sincerity, or just doing what came “natural,” among American youth. No one wanted to sound affected anymore, and Herts considered this an unfortunate development: “We are all in a state of ‘becoming’ and only he who stagnates can be completely consistent or supremely sincere.”
Hill, Napoleon. Napoleon HilVs A Year of Growing Rich: 52 Steps to Achieving Life’s Rewards. Edited by Matthew Sartwell, anthology assembled by Samuel A. Cypert. Foreword by W. Clement Stone. New York: Plume, 1993.
A posthumous collection of Hill-isms.
-. Success Through a Positive Mental Attitude. New York: Prentice
Hall, Inc., 1960.
A retread of some themes from Think and Grow Rich.
-. Think and Grow Rich, revised edition. New York: Fawcett World
Library, 1960.
See chapter 5. Besides the Master Mind, includes chapters on “The Mystery of Sex Transmutation” (arguing that highly sexed individuals are the most successful, as long as they channel that energy well), and “Imagination” (where he makes an interesting distinction between “creative imagination,” where you concoct things from scratch, and “synthetic imagination,” which is more about putting disparate thoughts and ideas together). Also well stocked with lists of assorted “Causes of Failure.”
Hill, Rosa Lee. How to Attract Men and Money. Meriden, Connecticut: The Ralston Society, 1940.
This book could fill a chapter in itself—and the main reason it doesn’t, besides the fact that it doesn’t offer much good advice, is that it’s a singular work of wholly deluded narcissism. It is painful to read. I found it mesmerizing. Rosa Lee Hill was Napoleon Hill’s second wife. Napoleon married Rosa Lee—Beeland, was her maiden name—not long after the ink on his divorce papers was dry. (Hill’s first wife, Florence, finally walked out on him after years of neglect.) Worried that family and former business associates would come after his assets, a prenuptial agreement was drafted that assigned to Rosa Lee nearly all of the proceeds from his books. Neither Napoleon nor Rosa Lee had much cash to speak of at the time, and during the first months of their marriage they in fact lived with Hill’s son Blair and his wife in an apartment in New York’s Hell’s Kitchen.
When Think and Grow Rich became a huge success, Rosa Lee (who’d helped edit Think and Grow Rich) was able to secure a publisher for a book of her own. The book she wanted to give the world was How to Attract Men and Money. If anyone was curious as to how she, Rosa Lee, had got it all—a happy marriage, a beautiful lakeside home in Florida, and a career that she loved—this book would tell them how. The publisher’s preface touched on many of the book’s themes, including the author’s relationship to her “famous husband with whom she is perfectly happy at all times,” Rosa Lee’s unswerving commitment to serving others, her peerless ability to infuse every waking moment with romance, and her sincere desire to help all single women find the men of their dreams (and then help those men to achieve financial success if they didn’t enjoy it already). Still, Rosa Lee was sensitive about possibly being dismissed as a woman simply riding her husband’s coattails. “I have been rewarded by more of the blessings of life than most women ever enjoy,” she wrote, “but no one should jump at the conclusion that I have been blessed without effort on my part. My blessings are of my own creation.” She had never, she said, trampled upon the rights of anyone, and instead sought only to help people find happiness.
How to Attract Men and Money was released in 1940, three years after she and Napoleon were married, and the same year they filed for divorce. The settlement left her with everything, including Hill’s latest Rolls-Royce.
Hilton, Conrad. Be My Guest. New York: Prentice Hall, 1957.
This book—Conrad Hilton’s memoir—used to be placed in every Hilton hotel room nightstand alongside the Gideon Bible.
Hilton, Paris, with Merle Ginsberg. Confessions of an Heiress: A Tongue-in-Chic Peek Behind the Pose. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2004.
Holden, Mark. The Use & Abuse of Office Politics: How to Survive and Thrive in the Corporate Jungle. New South Wales, Australia: Allen & Unwin, 2003.
Howells, William Dean. The Rise of Silas Lapham. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1884.
William Dean Howells was the Tom Wolfe of his day. One of the first major fictional treatments of the self-made American industrialist (and his daughters, whose need for husbands provides a slender romantic subplot). Many pages are devoted to Boston real estate as well.
Huber, Richard M. The American Idea of Success. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1971.
Iacocca, Lee, with William Novak. lacocca: An Autobiography. New York: Bantam Books, 1984.
The number one nonfiction bestseller in 1984 and 1985. Lee Iacocca worked his way up through the sales department to run the Ford
Motor Company for several years, was spectacularly fired in 1978 by Henry Ford II, and then went on to help resuscitate the ailing Chrysler Corporation. Besides being a diverting account of life at the epicenter of twentieth-century corporate America, lacocca includes the revelation that lacocca was a huge advocate of Dale Carnegie Training (and sent dozens of Ford engineers there on the company dime), and that “except for periods of real crisis” he never worked on Friday nights or on weekends. The beginning pages feature many homespun odes to Iacocca’s Depression-minded father (who at one time ran a hot-dog joint called the Orpheum Wiener House), including this diatribe about bad service: “He was really a bird about performing up to your potential—no matter what you did. If we went out to a restaurant and the waitress was rude, he’d call her over at the end of
the meal and give her his standard little speech. ‘I’m going to give you a real tip,’ he’d say. ‘Why are you so unhappy in this job? Is anyone forcing you to be a waitress? When you act surly, you’re telling everybody you don’t like what you’re doing. We’re out for a nice time and you’re wrecking it. If you really want to be a waitress, then you should work at being the best damn waitress in the world. Otherwise, find yourself another line of work.’ ”
Johnson, Spencer. Who Moved My Cheese? An A-Mazing Way to Deal with Change in Your Work and in Your Life. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1998.
Jones, Edward E. Ingratiation: A Social Psychological Analysis. New York: Irvington Publishers, Inc., 1975.
Much of Ingratiation found its way into chapters 2 and 8.
Jongeward, Dorothy. Everybody Wins: Transactional Analysis Applied to Organizations. Reading, Massachusetts: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, 1973.
Jordan, William George. The Majesty of Calmness. New York: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1900.
Josephson, Matthew. The Robber Barons: The Great American Capitalists, 1861-1901. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1934.
Kaczynski, Theodore. “Industrial Society and Its Future.” Full text available at http://en.wikisource.org./wiki/Industrial_Society_and_Its_Future. (Website accessed on August 6, 2007.)
Kanter, Rosabeth Moss. Men and Women of the Corporation. New York: Basic Books, 1977.
Karabel, Jerome. The Chosen: The Hidden History of Admission and Exclusion at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2005.
Kelly, Kevin H., ed. Books That Shaped Successful People. Minneapolis: Fairview Press, 1995.
I pulled this one off the $1 cart at Strand Bookstore. It was compiled by a young man who, as a sophomore at San Diego State University, found himself wondering why more reading lists weren’t being published. He wanted advice on what to read (“I didn’t want to just grab any book from the shelf at random”). So he came up with a form letter that he sent around to a long list of people, people who’d established themselves in politics (John McCain, Arlen Specter), entertainment (Woody Harrelson, Mike Meyers, Henry Rollins, Bob Costas), business, and a few random others (Jane Goodall also got a letter). He asked everyone two questions: “What ten books do you feel a well-read, well-educated person should read or simply should have read? Also, what do you feel is the greatest book you have ever read?” Books That Shaped Successful People reproduced their responses in their entirety—including the headshots sent back with them. (The effect is like sifting through photocopies someone left on the Xerox.) The top fifteen responses, as Kelly tabulated them, were: The Bible, Huckleberry Finn, the works of Shakespeare, Hamlet, War and Peace, The Iliad, The Odyssey; The Catcher in the Rye, The Sound and the Fury; The Prophet, The Brothers Karamazov, Gone With the Wind, The Grapes of Wrath, A Tale of Two Cities, and The Inferno. Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead was a near miss. Richard M. Rosenberg, then chairman and CEO of BankAmerica, displayed refreshing candor when he said everyone should read Plato’s Images of the Cave but his favorite book was The Hunt for Red October.
Kemp, Giles, and Edward Claflin. Dale Carnegie: The Man Who Influenced Millions. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1989.
Kepcher, Carolyn, with Stephen Fenichell. Carolyn 101: Business Lessons from The Apprenticed Straight Shooter. New York: Fireside, 2004. See chapter 10.
Kettle, James. The est Experience. New York: Kensington Publishing Corp., 1976.
See the Interlude.
King, Larry, with Bill Gilbert. How to Talk to Anyone, Anytime, Anywhere: The Secrets of Good Communication. New York: Crown Publishers, 1994.
Larry King, much to my surprise, has a pleasantly straightforward list of what he believes all the best talkers have in common: They have unorthodox takes on familiar subjects, a broad range of experiences and knowledge to draw upon, are enthusiastic about their lives and interested in others’, “don’t talk about themselves all the time,” and tend to ask some variation of why a lot. Good talkers also, according to King, have the ability to empathize, a sense of humor (preferably self-deprecating), and a distinctive manner of speaking. When describing the ideal guest on his talk show, he also mentions the usefulness of “a chip on the shoulder.”
Lang, Adele. Confessions of a Sociopathic Social Climber. New York: Thomas Dunne Books, 1998.
Layard, Richard. Happiness: Lessons from a New Science. New York: The Penguin Press, 2005.
Levenstein, Aaron. Why People Work: Changing Incentives in a Troubled World. New York: The Crowell Collier Press, 1962.
Livingston, J. Sterling. “Pygmalion in Management.” Harvard Business Review 47 (4), 1969.
Luck, Martha S. Instant Secretary’s Handbook: A Reference Source and Guide for the Professional Secretary. Mundelein, Illinois: Career Institute, 1972.
Lundberg, Ferdinand. The Rich and the Super-Rich: A Study in the Power of Money Today. Secaucus, New Jersey: Lyle Stuart Inc., 1988.
Mackay, Harvey. Swim with the Sharks Without Being Eaten Alive. New York: Morrow, 1988.
The CEO of Mackay Envelope Company explains how he became the largest supplier of paper envelopes in North America. Essentially a more Minnesota version of Mark McCormack’s What They Don’t Teach You at Harvard Business School.
MacNaghton, Hugh. Emile Coue: The Man and His Work. New York: Dodd, Mead and Co., 1922.
See chapter 2. MacNaghton, upon observing a Coue workshop, also recommended reciting the following mantras for dealing with physical or psychic discomfort: “This Is Doing Me Good,” “This Is Doing Me No Harm,” and “It Is Passing.”
Mager, N. H. and S. K. A Guide to Better Living. New York: Affiliated Publishers, 1957.
One of their more provocative lines: “Liking people is something that grows on you, like a taste for olives or for good music.”
Marden, Orison Swett. Everybody Ahead, Or, Getting the Most Out of Life. New York: Frank E. Morrison, 1916.
See chapter 2.
-. He Can Who Thinks He Can. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell
Company, 1908.
-. How to Get What You Want. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell
Company, 1917.
-. Little Visits with Great Americans, Or, Success Ideals and How to
Attain Them. New York: The Success Company, 1905.
-. The Optimistic Life. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company,
1907.
-. The Progressive Business Man. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell
Company, 1913.
-. Prosperity: How to Attract It. New York: Success Magazine Corporation, 1922.
Mathews, William. Getting On in the World: Or, Hints on Success in Life.
Chicago: S. C. Griggs and Company, 1874.
See chapter 1.
McCabe, James D. Great Fortunes. New York, 1871.
Capsule histories of the Astors, Vanderbilts, and other prominent families and bank accounts of the Gilded Age. Considering accusations that some of these fortunes were ill-gained, McCabe concluded that while “trickery and sharp practice” may allow someone to rise to great riches quickly, it was also generally true that such fortune “rarely stays with its possessors for more than a generation, if so long.”
McCarthy, Mary. The Company She Keeps. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc., 1942.
See chapter 6.
McCormack, Mark. What They Don’t Teach You at Harvard Business School: Notes from a Street-Smart Executive. New York: Bantam Books, 1984.
Mark McCormack was essentially the first sports agent. He had a hunch that professional athletes might be able to help companies move product—crazy, I know—and signed a young Arnold Palmer as his first client in the early 1960s, sealing the deal with a simple handshake. It was a gesture that made them both millions. McCormack’s small start-up grew into the enormous International Management Group, or IMG.
The key to his success, as he expounded at length in What They Don’t Teach You, was good people sense. In contrast to rah-rah,
swaggering corporate warrior stereotypes, McCormack actually chalked up his prowess in hard-rolling environments to what are traditionally seen as more feminine endowments: willingness to sit back and listen, perception into personality, and tuning in to the subtexts of any given conversation. “Talk less,” he counseled up-and-coming MBAs. “Ask questions and then don’t begin to answer them yourself.” Rather than boast of your own accomplishments, McCormack wrote, it’s best to shut up and let other people talk. At least that allowed you to pay closer attention—the essence of every successful negotiation, he felt.
Mclnerney, Jay. Bright Lights, Big City. New York: Random House, 1984.
Millhauser, Steven. Martin Dressier: The Tale of an American Dreamer. New York: Crown, 1998.
The up-by-your-bootstraps story meets magical realism.
Mills, C. Wright. White Collar: The American Middle Classes. New York: Oxford University Press, 1951.
A classic in the postwar pity-white-bread-professionals-because-they’ve-sold-their-souls-and-hardly-even-know-it genre. C. Wright Mills was an academic greatly concerned about the growth of bureaucracy in American life, and in particular how it grew in tandem with a new class of well-compensated automatons. They wandered down the hall in a conformist stupor, Mills thought, but they also—and worse—were in danger of losing the capacity for independent thought altogether. He took an oblique swipe at Dale Carnegie and his kind, painting their suggestions primarily as manipulation tools that management used to keep employees in line without having to act overtly authoritative. Employees didn’t have to be told what to do anymore—they’d submitted themselves to brainwashing. “The formal aim, implemented by the latest psychological equipment, is to have men internalize what the managerial cadres would have them do, without their knowing their own motives, but nevertheless having them,” Mills wrote. It’s a stance that irks me, because it assumes a lot about people in certain professions (namely, that they weren’t discerning or intelligent enough to act in their own best interest). Less interesting as a description of what these white-collar professionals, and their jobs, were actually like, and more interesting as a prime example of what it is—academic criticism of everyone who doesn’t have a job in academia.