Norman Vincent Peale (1898-1993) was a religious leader who developed a blend of psychotherapy and religion based on the idea that nearly all basic problems are personal. He spread this message through his radio and television programs and through his popular book The Power of Positive Thinking and other writings.

Norman Vincent Peale was born in the small Ohio town of Bowersville on May 31, 1898, son of the local Methodist minister. The family moved frequently, in the Methodist itinerant tradition. They were not wealthy, and young Peale earned money delivering papers, working in a grocery store, and selling pots and pans door-to-door.

Graduating in 1920 from Ohio Wesleyan, a Methodist-founded college, Peale worked as a reporter on two newspapers, the Findlay (Ohio) Morning Republican and the Detroit Journal, for about a year before deciding that his life work lay elsewhere. Ordained to the Methodist ministry in 1922, he took a master's...