Norman Vincent Peale

Peale was born in Bowersville, Ohio, in 1898. Following college (Ohio
Wesleyan University) and work on newspapers (Detroit Journal), he
studied theology at Boston University. After ordination he quickly
became a popular preacher who could swell congregation numbers tenfold.
During his time at University Methodist Church in Syracuse, New
York, he met and married Ruth Stafford, his life-long partner and
collaborator.
At 34, Peale moved to Marble Collegiate Church in New York City,
where he stayed through the Depression and the Second World War
until the early 1980s. His sermons became so well known that they
attracted tourists. In the 1930s he also began a radio broadcast, "The
Art of Living," that was to be heard weekly for 54 years, and established
a clinic of Christian psychotherapy with psychiatrist Smiley
Blanton. In 1945 he established the inspirational magazine Guideposts,
which is still popular. Politically he was conservative: He traveled to
Vietnam at President Nixon's request and was given the Presidential
Medal of Freedom by Ronald Reagan.
Peale was a prolific speaker; he was still addressing around 100
groups a year in his 90s. He died on Christmas Eve, 1993, aged 95, but
the Peale Center in New York State carries on his work. Peale's life has
been chronicled in Carol V. R. George's God's Salesman: Normal
Vincent Peale and the Power of Positive Thinking.