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 Californiä, 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.