The Overnight Sensation

The book, How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie provided a way for people to motivate themselves and enter the work force after the Great Depression. As an enlightened individual and business man of the time, Mr. Carnegie created a book that, "touched a nerve and filled a human need that was more than a faddish phenomenon of post-Depression days, as evidenced by its continued and uninterrupted sales into the eighties, almost …

…who did not feel that they had ever accomplished anything of value during their lives, and taught them how to get along in the business world. This was extremely important since the break of the Depression called for workers to go back into work. It had given people that the Great Depression infected a new outlook on life. Thus, the situation of peoples' lives during the Great Depression made Dale Carnegie's book an "overnight sensation."