Being "self-made" - what is that about? To put it into a sentence wouldn't it be: I made me myself. Wikipedia's got an answer and it is a phrase distinctly American and imbued in American culture over time.
the moment of its arias is marked in history: "Self-made man" was coined in 1832 by Henry Clay in the United States Senate, to describe individuals whose success lay within the individuals themselves, not with outside conditions.
It is rugged individualism that has been idealized in America.
Benjamin Franklin was considered the first and the greatest of the self-made men. He became an inspiration for many men who described themselves as self-made and were inspired by his life and the qualities biographers felt he had.
The expression took off - a series of lectures that went on for decades kept this in the American consciousness. The expression had charisma - It means an individual who arises from a poor or otherwise disadvantaged background and achieves success in financial, political or other areas through noble qualities, particularly perseverance and hard work, rather than achieving these goals through inherited fortune, family connections, or other privileges. That's Clay's description.
In simple terms it is a "rags to riches" scenario. "One cannot be made by the help of a father, teacher, mentor, but must rise by one's own grit, determination, discipline and opportunism".
My sense is that Americans would like this to be a real "myth" - a traditional story of ostensibly historical events that serves to unfold part of the world view of a people or explain a practice, belief, or natural phenomenon. -The other definition seems more accurate - a widely held but false belief or idea.
The traditional story and history aspect is that writers over time identified men who achieved financial and political success, and then "inducted" them into the "Self-Made Hall of Fame" by categorizing them as self-made. Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, P. T. Barnum, Booker T. Washington, and Andrew Carnegie are looked as a kind of royalty in the Self-Made Man Hall of Fame.
Who else would you guess? I looked at this list HERE on the artofmanliness website and found a variety of men listed - all of them achieving financial or political success. Most of the presidents are considered self-made - Ronald Regan, Barak Obama, and so on. All the great inventors are in the club - Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, Walt Disney. And the wealthy are there - John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, and others..
Those who say this is a false belief "myth" focus on cooperation over individual effort, along with the sense of self-glorification of describing oneself as "self-made". Take the example of Donald Trump - he described himself as self-made at least 8 times on one PBS show. His father described himself as self-made also. Can there be generations of self-made men? Doesn't that contradict the definition? This is just one of the disparities one finds when reading about the topic.
The self-made man has a statue to celebrate his status. I imagine that Trump's own Hall of Fame might include such a statue with his head on the muscular body with hammer held high to beat out his physical being in stone.
Aren't these great examples of "mighty determination"? Bobbie Carlyle's sculptures are mostly portrayed below. She started making the self-made man in the late 1980s.
Our picture today? Hammer in hand - chiseling on the Railroad.
