Napoleon Hill

Author, businessman

• Born: October 26, 1883
• Birthplace: Wise County, Virginia
• Died: November 8, 1970
• Place of death: Greenville, South Carolina

Significance: Napoleon Hill was an American author and businessman known for his series of self-help books. Hill's major success was his book Think and Grow Rich, published in 1937. The book became a best seller and remained one of the top-selling self-help books into the 2010s. Many of Hill's claims and purported associations with various public figures have not been verified, however, and historians believe the author made up many of the stories featured in his books.

Background

Oliver Napoleon Hill was born on October 26, 183, in Wise County, Virginia. His father, James Hill, was an unlicensed dentist and illegally distilled liquor on the side. His mother, Sarah, died when Hill was nine years old. His father remarried a woman named Martha a year later. Martha was described as a disciplinarian who kept the young Hill in line. Hill regularly got himself into trouble for wandering the Virginia backwoods with a pistol when he was only twelve years old. Martha ensured Hill received a proper education and learned to read and write. She purchased him a typewriter in 1895.

Hill grew into an enthusiastic writer and began composing weekly newsletters that occasionally got picked up by small newspapers throughout Virginia. Although he had a talent for storytelling, Hill's early writings were described as unrefined and overly imaginative. He later admitted to making up many of these stories when the news week was slow. He graduated from high school at seventeen and moved to Tazewell, Virginia, to enroll in business school. In 1901, he began working for coal magnate Rufus Ayres. He worked for Ayres for six months before being promoted to the position of clerk in one of the magnate's coal mines in Richlands, Virginia.

According to Hill's official biography, he so impressed his employer with his devotion and integrity that he soon was promoted to the post of manager of one of Ayres's coal mines, making him responsible for about 350 men at the age of nineteen. Skeptics of this biography believe the promotion was actually Ayres expressing his gratefulness to Hill for helping him cover up a shooting committed by one of Ayres's bank employees.

Little is known about Hill's life between 1903 and 1908. He reportedly worked as a sales manager at a lumber yard. He moved to Alabama in 1905 and opened his own lumber yard, Acree-Hill Lumber Company, in 1907. In May 1908, Hill was arrested for altering checks but was later acquitted. His business activities at Acree-Hill Lumber Company then came under the scrutiny of his suppliers. He purchased tens of thousands of dollars of lumber on credit from suppliers across the country and sold the lumber for cash in Alabama. Lumber suppliers soon discovered Hill was committing fraud, pocketing the cash from the lumber sales instead of repaying his debts. In September 1908, Hill fled Alabama.

Overview

Hill disappeared for several months, and a warrant was eventually issued for his arrest. He was sued by at least one of the lumber suppliers. Hill later filed for bankruptcy and somehow avoided arrest. By December 1908, Hill had relocated to Washington, DC, giving himself a new name and backstory to start a new life. He began referring to himself as Napoleon Hill rather than Oliver.

According to Hill, 1908 is the year he met Andrew Carnegie, a meeting that changed his life. He claimed Carnegie divulged to him the "principles of achievement" and the secrets of financial success. According to Carnegie's official biographer, however, no evidence exists to show Hill ever met Carnegie. Historians believe Hill spent most of 1908 evading arrest and that the story about Carnegie was only a device to promote his later writings.

In Washington, Hill joined the Automobile Club of Washington and established the Automobile College of Washington in 1909. He purchased ads in various Washington newspapers touting a six-week training course that taught people to become expert automobile assemblers. The training course was actually a front to get people to provide Hill with free labor to build cars for the Carter Motor Corporation. Hill's college was exposed as a scam in 1912.

Hill briefly relocated to West Virginia with his family after the college folded before moving to Chicago to take a job at LaSalle Extension University. He left this position less than a year later to purchase a franchise of the Martha Washington Candy Company with three partners but was forced out of the business shortly thereafter. He then established another school, the George Washington Institute, which claimed to teach its students the principles of success. This school also failed, and many of its students accused Hill of fraud.

Throughout the 1920s, Hill became involved in various business ventures including starting his own magazines and charitable foundation. According to his biography, he met and befriended many influential figures during this period. In 1928, he convinced a publisher to release his eight-volume work Law of Success. The books sold well, likely because they purported to contain wisdom from some of the most renowned men in the country, such as Thomas Edison and Alexander Graham Bell. Hill briefly enjoyed financial success until the Great Depression hit, and he spent much of the early 1930s revisiting his old business habits to stay afloat.

Hill published his most successful book, Think and Grow Rich, in 1937. The book made Hill a wealthy man again, but he lost a great deal of his fortune to creditors and later in a divorce settlement. Between 1939 and 1945, Hill released three more publications: How to Sell Your Way through Life, a seventeen-volume course of study titled Mental Dynamite, and The Master Key to Riches. Between 1952 and 1962, Hill reportedly taught a course titled Philosophy of Personal Achievement in association with W. Clement Stone, founder of Combined Insurance Company of America. He published four more books related to his "science of success" throughout the remainder of his life: How to Raise Your Own Salary (1953), Success through a Positive Mental Attitude (1959), Grow Rich with Peace of Mind (1967), and Succeed and Grow Rich through Persuasion (1970). He had two more books in development before his death on November 8, 1970. Both were published posthumously.

Impact

Hill's business tactics inspired a number of self-help personalities during his life and after his death. His influence is evident in the life-coaching techniques of self-help gurus such as Tony Robbins. Hill's strategies are apparent in the works of other self-help authors, such as Norman Vincent Peale's The Power of Positive Thinking (1952) and Rhonda Byrne's The Secret (2006).

Personal Life

Hill was married five times throughout his life. His first marriage reportedly occurred when he was fifteen years old but was later annulled. In 1903 he married Edith Whitman. The pair had a daughter in 1905 but divorced in 1908. Hill married a third time in 1910 to Florence Elizabeth Hornor, who bore him three children. They divorced in 1935. He then married Rosa Lee Beeland in 1936 before divorcing her about 1940. He married for a fifth time to Annie Lou Norman in 1943.

Principal Works

• The Law of Success,1928
• Think and Grow Rich, 1937
• How to Sell Your Way through Life, 1939
• How to Raise Your Own Salary, 1953
• Succeed and Grow Rich through Persuasion, 1970

Bibliography

Driscoll, Molly. "10 Best Self-Help Books of All Time." Christian Science Monitor, 26 Apr. 2012, www.csmonitor.com/Books/2012/0426/10-best-self-help-books-of-all-time/Think-and-Grow-Rich-by-Napolean-Hill. Accessed 6 Feb. 2018.

Landers, Michael J., and Kirk Ritt. A Lifetime of Riches: The Biography of Napoleon Hill. Dutton, 1995.

"Napoleon Hill Is Dead at 87; Wrote Best‐Seller on Success." New York Times, 10 Nov. 1970, www.nytimes.com/1970/11/10/archives/napoleon-hill-is-dead-at-87-wrote-bestseller-on-success.html. Accessed 6 Feb. 2018.

"Napoleon Hill Timeline." Napoleon Hill Foundation, www.naphill.org/napoleon-hill/napoleon-hill-timeline/. Accessed 6 Feb. 2018.

Novak, Matt. "The Untold Story of Napoleon Hill, the Greatest Self-Help Scammer of All Time." Gizmodo, 6 Dec. 2016, paleofuture.gizmodo.com/the-untold-story-of-napoleon-hill-the-greatest-self-he-1789385645. Accessed 6 Feb. 2018.

Schein, Michael. "The Real Reason Napoleon Hill Grew Rich (Hint: It's Not What You Think)." Inc.,14 Feb. 2017, www.inc.com/michael-schein/brthe-real-reason-napoleon-hill-grew-rich-hint-its-not-what-you-think.html. Accessed 6 Feb. 2018.