Norman Vincent Peale's Biography

Peale's father was a physician who became a methodist minister. Like his father, Norman Vincent Peale did not go straight into the clergy. Instead he became a journalist. Whilst at college he worked on the Findlay Ohio Morning Republican and once he had graduated Peale worked for the Detroit Journal.

However, Norman Vincent Peale enrolled at Boston University School of Theology and then became a preacher.

At University Methodist College he met Ruth Stafford. They married and shared 63 years together. Together they founded the interfaith magazine, Guideposts.

When he was 34 Norman Vincent Peale joined Marble Collegiate Church. He stayed there for six decades.

One of his innovations took place as early as 1933 when he instituted a weekly radio broadcast.

Dr Norman Vincent Peale wrote 46 books, but it is for his fourth book, The Power of Positive Thinking, published in 1952, that he is most famous. It sold more than 20 million copies and 'positive thinking' has since become a regular expression.

On 31 May 1998, the centenary of his birth, the West 29th block between Fifth Avenue and Brodaway in New York was renamed Norman Vincent Peale Way. It is the location of Marble Church.

Ronald Reagan said of Norman Vincent Peale: "I consider myself fortunate to have had the opportunity to witness firsthand the incredible and unsurpassed influence he has had on America and the World."

Norman Vincent Peale died on December 24, 1993.