The Project Gutenberg eBook, How They Succeeded, by Orison Swett Marden

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HOW
THEY SUCCEEDED

HOW

THEY SUCCEEDED

LIFE STORIES of SUCCESSFUL

MEN TOLD by THEMSELVES

By ORISON SWETT MARDEN

EDITOR of “SUCCESS.” AUTHOR of “WINNING OUT,” ETC., ETC. ❧

ILLUSTRATED

LOTHROP PUBLISHING COMPANY BOSTON ❧

COPYRIGHT,

1901, By

LOTHROP

PUBLISHING

COMPANY.

ALL RIGHTS

RESERVED

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

PAGE
MARSHALL FIELD [19]
“Determined not to remain poor”[20]
“Saved my Earnings, and Attended strictly to Business”[20]
“I always thought I would be a Merchant”[21]
An Opportunity[21]
A Cash basis[23]
“Every Purchaser must be enabled to feel secure”[24]
The Turning-Point[25]
Qualities that make for Success[27]
A College Education and Business[27]

CHAPTER II

BELL TELEPHONE TALK
HINTS ON SUCCESS BY ALEXANDER G. BELL.		[30]
A Night Worker[30]
The Subject of Success[31]
Perseverance applied to a Practical End[32]
Concentration of Purpose[34]
Young American Geese[36]
Unhelpful Reading[36]
Inventions in America[37]
The Orient[38]
Environment and Heredity[38]
Professor Bell’s Life Story[40]
“I will make the World Hear it”[41]

CHAPTER III

WHY THE AMERICAN PEOPLE LIKE HELEN GOULD[44]
A Face Full of Character[45]
Her Ambitions and Aims[45]
A Most Charming Charity[46]
Her Practical Sympathy for the Less Favored[49]
Personal Attention to an Unselfish Service[52]
Her Views upon Education[55]
The Evil of Idleness[56]
Her Patriotism[56]
“Our Helen”[59]
“America”[60]
Unheralded Benefactions[60]
Her Personality[63]

CHAPTER IV

PHILIP D. ARMOUR’S BUSINESS CAREER[65]
Footing it to California[68]
The Ditch[70]
He enters the Grain Market[71]
Mr. Armour’s Acute Perception of the Commercial Conditions for Building up a Great Business[72]
System and Good Measure[73]
Methods[74]
The Turning-Point[75]
Truth[75]
A Great Orator and a Great Charity[75]
Ease in His Work[77]
A Business King[78]
Training Youth for Business[79]
Prompt to Act[82]
Foresight[83]
Forearmed against Panic[84]
Some Secrets of Success[85]

CHAPTER V

WHAT MISS MARY E. PROCTOR DID TO POPULARIZE ASTRONOMY[87]
Audiences are Appreciative[88]
Lectures to Children[89]
A Lesson in Lecturing[90]
The Stereopticon[91]
“Stories from Starland”[93]
Concentration of Attention[94]

CHAPTER VI

THE BOYHOOD EXPERIENCE OF PRESIDENT SCHURMAN OF CORNELL UNIVERSITY[96]
A Long Tramp to School[98]
He Always Supported Himself[100]
The Turning-Point of his Life[101]
A Splendid College Record[103]

CHAPTER VII

THE STORY OF JOHN WANAMAKER[105]
His Capital at Fourteen[106]
Tower Hall Clothing Store[107]
His Ambition and Power as an Organizer at Sixteen[108]
The Y. M. C. A.[109]
Oak Hall[109]
A Head Built for Business[110]
His Relation to Customers[111]
The Merchant’s Organizing Faculty[113]
Attention to Details[115]
The Most Rigid Economy[115]
Advertising[116]
Seizing Opportunities[117]
Push and Persistence[117]
Balloons[119]
“To what, Mr. Wanamaker, do you Attribute your Great Success?”[120]
His Views on Business[121]
Public Service[124]
Invest in Yourself[124]
At Home[126]

CHAPTER VIII

GIVING UP FIVE THOUSAND A YEAR TO BECOME A SCULPTOR[129]

CHAPTER IX

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS BUSINESS POINTERS BY DARIUS OGDEN MILLS.[139]
Work[139]
Self-Dependence[140]
Thrift[141]
Expensive Habits—Smoking[141]
Forming an Independent Business Judgment[142]
The Multiplication of Opportunities To-day in America[142]
Where is One’s Best Chance? The Knowledge of Men[143]
The Bottom of the Ladder[144]
The Beneficent Use of Capital[145]
Wholesome Discipline of Earning and Spending[146]
Personal: A Word about Cheap Hotels[146]

CHAPTER X

NORDICA: WHAT IT COSTS TO BECOME A QUEEN OF SONG[149]
The Difficulties[150]
“The World was Mine, if I would Work”[152]
“It put New Fire into me”[154]
“I was Traveling on Air”[156]
In Europe[159]
“Why don’t you Sing in Grand Opera?”[161]
This was her Crowning Triumph[162]
She was Indispensable in “Aida”[166]
The Kindness of Frau Wagner[167]
Musical Talent of American Girls[169]
The Price of Fame[170]

CHAPTER XI

HOW HE WORKED TO SECURE A FOOT-HOLD WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS.[171]
A Lofty Ideal[172]
Acquiring a Literary Style[174]
My Workshop[175]
How to Choose Between Words[177]
The Fate following Collaboration[179]
Consul at Venice[180]
My Literary Experience[182]
As to a Happy Life[184]

CHAPTER XII

JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER [185]
His Early Dream and Purpose[186]
School Days[188]
A Raft of Hoop Poles[191]
The Odor of Oil[192]
His First Ledger and the Items in it[193]
$10,000[196]
He Remembered the Oil[197]
Keeping his Head[197]
There was Money in a Refinery[198]
Standard Oil[200]
Mr. Rockefeller’s Personality[201]
At the Office[202]
Foresight[203]
Hygiene[204]
At Home[205]
Philanthropy[206]
Perseverance[207]
A Genius for Money-Making[207]

CHAPTER XIII

THE AUTHOR OF THE BATTLE HYMN OF THE REPUBLIC HER VIEWS OF EDUCATION FOR YOUNG WOMEN.[209]
“Little Miss Ward”[211]
She was Married to a Reformer[212]
Story of the “Battle Hymn of the Republic”[214]
“Eighty Years Young”[215]
The Ideal College[217]

CHAPTER XIV

A TALK WITH EDISON DRAMATIC INCIDENTS IN HIS EARLY LIFE.[220]
The Library[221]
A Chemical Newsboy[223]
Telegraphy[225]
His Use of Money[227]
Inventions[228]
His Arrival at the Metropolis[231]
Mental Concentration[232]
Twenty Hours a Day[233]
A Run for Breakfast[234]
Not by accident and Not for Fun[235]
“I like it—I hate it”[236]
Doing One Thing Eighteen Hours is the Secret[237]
Possibilities in the Electrical Field[238]
Only Six Hundred Inventions[238]
His Courtship and his Home[239]

CHAPTER XV

A FASCINATING STORY BY GENERAL LEW WALLACE.[241]
A Boyhood of Wasted Opportunities[242]
His Boyhood Love for History and Literature[244]
A Father’s Fruitful Warning[245]
A Manhood of Splendid Effort[246]
“The Regularity of the Work was a Splendid Drill for me”[247]
Self-Education by Reading and Literary Composition[247]
“The Fair God”[249]
The Origin of “Ben-Hur”[250]
Influence of the Story of the Christ upon the Author[251]

CHAPTER XVI

CARNEGIE AS A METAL WORKER[253]
Early Work and Wages[254]
Colonel Anderson’s Books[255]
His First Glimpse of Paradise[256]
Introduced to a Broom[258]
An Expert Telegrapher[259]
What Employers Think of Young Men[261]
The Right Men in Demand[262]
How to Attract Attention[263]
Sleeping-Car Invention[264]
The Work of a Millionaire[266]
An Oil Farm[267]
Iron Bridges[268]
Homestead Steel Works[269]
A Strengthening Policy[270]
Philanthropy[271]
“The Misfortune of Being Rich Men’s Sons”[273]

CHAPTER XVII

JOHN B. HERRESHOFF, THE YACHT BUILDER[276]
PART I.
“Let the Work Show”[278]
The Voyage of Life[279]
A Mother’s Mighty Influence[280]
Self Help[281]
Education[282]
Apprentices[283]
Prepare to Your Utmost: then Do Your Best[284]
Present Opportunities[284]
Natural Executive Ability[285]
The Development of Power[286]
“My Mother”[287]
A Boat-Builder in Youth[288]
He Would Not be Discouraged[288]
The Sum of it All[289]
PART II. What the Herreshoff Brothers have been Doing.
Racing Jay Gould[291]
The “Stiletto”[293]
The Blind Brother[296]
Personality of John B. Herreshoff[297]
Has he a Sixth Sense?[299]
Seeing with His Fingers[300]
Brother Nat[301]

CHAPTER XVIII

A SUCCESSFUL NOVELIST: FAME AFTER FIFTY PRACTICAL HINTS TO YOUNG AUTHORS, BY AMELIA E. BARR.[304]
Value of Biblical and Imaginative Literature[305]
Renunciation[306]
Delightful Studies[307]
Fifteen Hours a Day[308]
An Accident[309]
Vocation[310]
Words of Counsel[310]

CHAPTER XIX

HOW THEODORE THOMAS BROUGHT THE PEOPLE NEARER TO MUSIC [314]
“I was Not an Infant Prodigy”[315]
Beginning of the Orchestra[316]
Music had No Hold on the Masses[320]
Working Out His Idea[323]
The Chief Element of his Success[326]

CHAPTER XX

JOHN BURROUGHS AT HOME: THE HUT ON THE HILL TOP[327]

CHAPTER XXI

VREELAND’S ROMANTIC STORY HOW HE CAME TO TRANSPORT A MILLION PASSENGERS A DAY.[341]

CHAPTER XXII

HOW JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY CAME TO BE MASTER OF THE HOOSIER DIALECT[357]
Thrown on His Own Resources[357]
Why he Longed to be a Baker[359]
Persistence[361]
Twenty Years of Rejected Manuscripts[362]
A College Education[364]
Riley’s Popularity[365]

INTRODUCTORY NOTE

THE GREAT INTEREST manifested in the life-stories of successful men and women, which have been published from time to time in the magazine Success, has actuated their production in book form. Many of these sketches have been revised and rewritten, and new ones have been added. They all contain the elements that make men and women successful; and they are intended to show that character, energy, and an indomitable ambition will succeed in the world, and that in this land, where all men are born equal and have an equal chance in life, there is no reason for despair. I believe that the ideal book for youth should deal with concrete examples; for that which is taken from real life is far more effective than that which is culled from fancy. Character-building, its uplifting, energizing force, has been made the basic principle of this work.

To all who have aided me I express a grateful acknowledgment; and to none more than to those whose life-stories are here related as a lesson to young people. Among those who have given me special assistance in securing those life-stories are, Mr. Harry Steele Morrison, Mr. J. Herbert Welch, Mr. Charles H. Garrett, Mr. Henry Irving Dodge, and Mr. Jesse W. Weik. I am confident that the remarkable exhibit of successful careers made in this book—careers based on sound business principles and honesty—will meet with appreciation on the part of the reading public.

Orison Swett Marden.