The Self-Made Man: Myth and Reality of an American Phenomenon

Research Paper (undergraduate) from the year 2010 in the subject American Studies - Culture and Applied Geography, grade: 1,3, Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg (Auslandswissenschaft), course: Hauptseminar: "Who are the Americans? Politics, Business and Culture from New York to California", language: English, abstract: In the first part of this essay I will contemplate the historical development of the concept of American individualism through the centuries, which created a contextual background for the establishment of a self-made man idea in the minds of Americans. In addition there will be given the biographical examples of self-made men that became a pattern for all the successors in American history. Furthermore I would like to make an overview of the various aspects of self-made man philosophy, which includes the discussion of its positive and negative sides and its influences on personality and society in general. Finally I will debate the ways of realisation of the self-made man idea nowadays and weigh the existing perspectives in the individualistic and contradictory world of now.