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| Wallace D. Wattles | |
|---|---|
| Name | Wallace D. Wattles |
| Birth date | 1860-11-14 |
| Birth place | Moniteau County, Missouri |
| Death date | 1911-02-07 |
| Death place | New York City, New York |
| Occupation | Author, New Thought |
| Notable works | The Science of Getting Rich |
Wallace D. Wattles was an American writer associated with the New Thought movement and popular self-help literature of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. His work intersected with contemporary movements and figures in metaphysical and religious philosophy circles, influencing later proponents of self-help and personal development such as Napoleon Hill, Rhonda Byrne, and authors connected to the New Age milieu. Wattles wrote on practical methods for prosperity and health, contributing to the proliferation of success literature alongside contemporaries like Orison Swett Marden and organizations like the International New Thought Alliance.
Wattles was born in Moniteau County, Missouri and raised during the post‑Civil War era when figures such as William McKinley and Grover Cleveland influenced national politics; his regional milieu connected him to Midwestern networks similar to those of Horace Greeley and Mark Twain. He attended local schools and engaged with printing and business practices prevalent in that period, echoing the vocational trajectories of writers who later migrated to publishing centers like New York City and Chicago. Wattles' intellectual formation drew from lectures and periodicals circulated among readers of Christian Science and followers of thinkers such as Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, situating him in an intellectual landscape shared with William James and Mary Baker Eddy.
Wattles began publishing in the era of mass-market self-improvement and periodicals exemplified by The Saturday Evening Post and publishers like D. Appleton & Company; his output included tractates, pamphlets, and books aimed at practical results. His best-known book, The Science of Getting Rich, appeared in 1910 and was distributed in formats akin to works by Samuel Smiles and Orison Swett Marden; Wattles also wrote on health and mental power in lines comparable to Elbert Hubbard and James Allen. He promoted methods involving visualization and affirmative practice resonant with techniques advanced by William Walker Atkinson and organizations such as the New Thought Federation. Wattles' writings were serialized and reprinted by publishers and occult presses that later carried the works of Manly P. Hall and Florence Scovel Shinn, creating textual networks across bibliophiles linked to Theosophical Society and periodicals like The Occult Review.
Wattles articulated a framework blending elements of Christianity-inflected rhetoric, metaphysical causation, and formulaic practice, in conversation with ideas advanced by Ralph Waldo Emerson, William James, and Mary Baker Eddy. He posited a creative, impersonal principle akin to concepts discussed by Baruch Spinoza and by writers in the transcendentalism tradition, advocating mental discipline similar to techniques promoted by Phineas Parkhurst Quimby and later echoed in positive thinking literature associated with Norman Vincent Peale. Central to Wattles' method were visualization, gratitude, and purposeful action, strategies that parallel prescriptions found in works by Napoleon Hill and Dale Carnegie. His synthesis drew from contemporaneous debates involving pragmatism and religious modernism engaged by intellectuals like John Dewey and William James.
During his lifetime Wattles received modest attention from readers of New Thought and self-help periodicals, aligning his reception with figures such as Orison Swett Marden and Elbert Hubbard. Posthumously his work was rediscovered and cited by mid‑20th and 21st century popularizers of prosperity theology and motivational media, influencing creators of self-help franchises and media productions like The Secret and authors such as Rhonda Byrne, Napoleon Hill (forerunner influence), and contemporary coaches within personal development networks. Academics studying American religious history and popular culture link Wattles to discussions involving the Social Gospel and commercialized spirituality evident in the publishing histories of Harper & Brothers and Bobbs-Merrill Company. Critics have compared his prescriptions to antecedent and subsequent prosperity trends visible in movements influenced by Christian Science, New Age, and marketplace spirituality promoted by institutions like the International New Thought Alliance.
Wattles married and worked in clerical and publishing occupations before moving to urban centers including St. Louis, Missouri and ultimately New York City, joining communities that included printers, editors, and lecturers in the tradition of Chautauqua assemblies and Lyceum circuits. He died in New York City in 1911 after a brief illness; his estate and papers circulated among small presses and collectors in the same bibliographic circles as those preserving the archives of Orison Swett Marden and William Walker Atkinson. His burial and memorial associations linked him to local fraternal and community organizations typical of turn‑of‑the‑century American authors.
Category:American self-help writers Category:New Thought writers Category:1860 births Category:1911 deaths