Self-made : the stories that forged an American myth / Pamela Walker Laird.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Laird, Pamela Walker, 1947- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Success--United States--History.

Success.

Individualism--United States--History.

Individualism.

Self-actualization (Psychology).

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xiii, 345 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, United Kingdom ; New York, NY, USA : Cambridge University Press, 2025.

Summary:

'Self-Made' success is now an American badge of honor that rewards individualist ambitions while it hammers against community obligations. Yet, four centuries ago, our foundational stories actually disparaged ambitious upstarts as dangerous and selfish threats to a healthy society. In Pamela Walker Laird's fascinating history of why and how storytellers forged this American myth, she reveals how the goals for self-improvement evolved from serving the community to supporting individualist dreams of wealth and esteem. Simplistic stories of self-made success and failure emerged that disregarded people's advantages and disadvantages and fostered inequality. Fortunately, Self-Made also recovers long-standing, alternative traditions of self-improvement to serve the common good. These challenges to the myth have offered inspiration, often coming, surprisingly, from Americans associated with self-made success, such as Benjamin Franklin, Frederick Douglass, and Horatio Alger. Here are real stories that show that no one lives - no one succeeds or fails - in a vacuum.

Contents:

Challenging the myth of self-made success

Self-improvement for the common good in the 1700s

Forging origins in Antebellum stories

Competing stories of self-help before 1936

Stories against the New Deal

The myth's twenty-first century victories.

Notes:

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 31 Oct 2025).

ISBN:

1-108-99597-7

1-108-98313-8

OCLC:

1533769357