Self-made man

A self-made man is a person whose success is of their own making. In the intellectual and cultural history of the United States, the idea of the self-made man as an archetype or cultural ideal looms large, but has been criticized by some as a myth or cult.

The phrase was coined on February 2, 1842, by Henry Clay in the United States Senate. Benjamin Franklin, one of the Founding Fathers of the United States, has been described as the greatest exemplar of the self-made man. Inspired by Franklin's autobiography, Frederick Douglass developed the concept of the self-made man in a series of lectures that spanned decades starting in 1879. Originally, the term referred to an individual who arises from a poor or otherwise disadvantaged background to eminence in financial, political or other areas by nurturing qualities, such as perseverance and hard work, as opposed to achieving these goals through inherited fortune, family connections, or other privileges. By the mid-1950s, success in the United States generally implied "business success".