Age of the Self-made Man
“We are all republican democrats, - we are all federalists.” - Thomas Jefferson
Most of us can agree on equal rights, and practice of benign beliefs.
Democrats and Whigs
Daniel Webster
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Youth's Friend Magazine - 1838
John Frost - Self-made Men of America 1848
Charles Seymour - Self-made Men 1858
James McCabe - Great Fortunes: Struggles & Triumphs of Self-Made Men 1871
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Many individual farmers had changed by 1870, becoming industrialized enough to produce more for a distant market
Jackson & Lincoln periods advocated self-taught artists and self-educated intellectuals
Republican - Abraham Lincoln
rebublican communities vs loose individual anarchy
Elihu Burritt - blacksmith philosopher
Chester Harding - famous self-taught artist
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Many 19th Century concepts of self-made men of Strand 2, told stories of how free-market capitalism allows people to “make it big” if they worked hard enough, while ignoring all the real stories of those that worked hard enough, and lost it all to unethical cheaters that did not always work as hard.
Henry Clay was one such Strand 2 Senators who defended Corporate America in the 1830s. An individual that failed may be a sad story, but he only had himself to blame. Any one that fails to rise to wealth and fame, obviously has individual problems; for which society should not be responsible. Even progressive populists tended to ignore private economic power, because most considered economic power as beneficial, and at worst neutral. Americans saw a division between Politics and Economics. Marvin Meyers and Richard Hofstadter explain the 19th Century popular mindset that had little interest in President Jackson's attacks on banks, and seemed to be apologists for the rich; at worst seeing them as a scape-goat that nothing can be done about. Popular 19th Century opinion was that individual economic advancement and industrial productivity, were the best ways to assure individual and general social welfare; perhaps in keeping with Darwin's “Survival of the Fittest” Theory of Evolution. America was the land of opportunity, so work hard, tap resources, and promote continuous expansion which will always create more opportunities (if you missed getting the first contract for development work). If you have more money, you can help others (if you want to). Interestingly, this ignores the fact that by having more money, you also have more power to hurt others, society, and the environment. Rich people will actually give less of what they have, than poor people who will give more because they are more sympathetic from experiences of having less (based on recent psychological percentage studies of how people give). Regardless of realities, the ideal of social mobility a persistent apolitical ethos, perhaps fed by the natural selfish desire of individuals (greed) to each have more and more wealth (power and abundance) for their own reasons. In Strand 2, the myth states that all can achieve success (wealth) if they just keep working hard, because this is America land of the free-market. However without caste-system social security, the pursuit of happiness through individual economic advancement had many ethical ambiguities. Indeed Americans were eager and restless to be successful in terms of wealth, and this created a manifest destiny on an epic scale which destroyed much of our continent's native cultures, environments, killed hundreds of thousands, and led to several extinctions (and near extinctions). This was the price of civilized advancement, and economic industrial success.
- Strand 2 theory
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At times Strand 2 seems to be a futile theory, for happiness or even stability.
“In the US a man builds a house... and sells it before the roof is on; he brings a field into tillage, and leaves others to harvest the crops; he settles a place, which he soon leaves to carry his changeable longings elsewhere. If his private affairs leave any leisure, he instantly plunges into a vortex of other stressful activities; and at the end of a year of unremitting labor, a few days of vacation are ruined by his curious ambition... suffering thousands of miles of tortuous travel. Death at length overtakes him, but it is often even before he has ceased the insane quest for complete felicity (happiness) which forever escapes him.” - based on a quote by De Tocqueville.
Continuous happiness will escape us always, I think, because it is not a mortal condition possible in reality; continuous bliss is an immortal 'paradise' archetype.
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In the mid-1800s there was a Strand 3, mixed attitude about success in our industrial civilization in popular literature (as opposed to testimonial observed behavior); seeking to strike a balance between traditional social and religious ideals, and new industrial economic enterprise. However many of these self-help books fell back on Strand 1 morality, reflected in many historical revivals of the later 1800s Victorian Period. “The Virtue of Labor”
Tradition of piety, industry, frugality, honesty, and perseverance. Practical morality. Protestant Calvinism.
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The lure of industry, gives way to the reality of misery and brutality - in Judd's novel of Lowell Mass.
Angst of Industrial Development - rather than “growth” it is decay. Morality vs Materialism.
Henry W Beecher, TS Arthur, Ervin Wyllie,
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TS Arthur - Way To Prosper 1851, contrasts Stevens Brothers pious victory, with Close Brothers vile failure
Sylvester Judd - Richard Edney - natural genius, formed Knuckle Lane Society, a Christian temperance and welfare group
evils flow from lack of prudence, lack of self-denial, and lack of economic wisdom at the beginning of life most of all (young people are the key)
Both Arthur and Judd criticize snobs in high society that fail to recognize simple honest virtues in common poor people of faith.
Common Every-Day Heroes are made from education, opportunity, industry (work), and self-denial.
Do not be discouraged by failures. Even Jobe from the Bible was given a rough time, the lesson is that some things are out of your control.
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Americans have a multitude of different success ideals.
It is important to decide which success ideals you aspire to, because it is harder to change later on.
Reality is often stranger than fiction. Gambling is one addicting path people use to try to achieve success.
Some people's social ideals are confined to an obsession with Table Manners, if they have any social graces at all.
Failure can happen despite noble intentions, and sometimes from following popular success strands (modes, models).
Some mobile individual heroes are amoral rogues; whose keys are shrewdness, cleverness, daring, and understanding of probability (desire to gamble, play the odds, make their own fate by chance, altering destiny by putting everything on the line).
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Jacob Abbott 1830s - wrote Rollo and Caleb - emphasis on evangelical Protestantism
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Major Jack Downing - original Uncle Sam character, by Journalist Seba Smith completed in 1834
Uncle Sam began as a country bumpkin with ironic interest in politics, who runs for Governor of Maine, and runs for DC offices.
His qualities are common sense, moral justice, social ethics, and dedication to open democratic society.
His faults are no manners, no formal education, no desire for cultural refinement
For better or worse, he has immense patriotism and boldness against tyranny and hypocrisy.
Jack worked on his father's East Coast farm until 1829, then went West to Portland, Oregon.
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David Crockett was a real politician during the same time of Uncle Sam (1830s), and had fictional legends in books as well.
Whig Party - shrewd frontier politician, crude, uneducated, self-learning, self-reliance
“Go ahead”
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Sam Slick - salesman who takes advantage of suckers, by TC Haliburton
Jonathan Slick - by Ann Stephens 1843
Captain Simon Suggs - JJ Hooper “It is good to be shifty in a new country.”
Slim Shady - Eminem 1990s
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Strand 3 raises the question: Can Ethics and Capitalism be practiced together?
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Decline of Protestant Ethic, Rise of Industrial Capitalism
Max Weber
Divine Providence of those that help themselves and provide for others
Natural Destiny in the Glory of God = Manifest Destiny
Vanderbilts
conventional formulas needed dynamic changing, redefining
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Self-Improvement and Self-Culture: Ralph Waldo Emerson “Self-Reliance”
Francis Parkman 1870s - against self-made culture, responsibilities of civilization rest with the elite only, not barbarians
Cooper - American (Republican) Democrat - Scholar vs Self-Educated, Genteel Elite vs Ignorant Masses
pursuit of wealth vs moral standards
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Walt Whitman - Democratic Vistas 1871 self-made = self-educated and spiritually moral and artistically creative
broad nature of humans makes self-culture
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