History of the Self-Help Movement

(Video: History of the Self-Help Movement)

Are you familiar with the self-help movement?

Contrary to what may appear, it has been around for thousands of years, from the time of Ancient Egypt till the present time. The Ancient Egyptians published works called “Sebayt” (which means teachings) and were basically instructional literature on how to live.

During the middle ages, there were books called The Mirror of Princes which gave self-improvement advice through stories told of kings and royalty, and suggested the common man should mirror such behaviors in order to improve his own life.

Then the year 1455 saw a sudden increase in the amount of self-help literature, due to the Gutenberg press allowing mass printings of books, allowing even the common man access to life changing literature about how to succeed and raise oneself from one’s social status, improve one’s health and even books on how one’s thinking leads to one’s success in life.

In the 1600-1700’s England, France and Italy saw an increase in books on how to conduct oneself in society in order to succeed. These books were known as “Savoi-vivre” which is literally “knowing how to live.”

Finally in 1859, Samuel Smiles penned a collection of inspirational stories dealing with men rising above adverse conditions to become successful. This collection was called Self-Help, and was so popular it outsold all books of that time, except for The Bible.

From then on to now, the self-help movement has seen continuous growth and interest in all walks of life and from different parts of the world. Especially in the latter part of the 20th century into modern society, we have seen an even greater increase in self-help media as people are looking more toward helping themselves and less on relying on other people to deal with their problems and to help themselves become the person they want to be.