In this Book

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Brings gender, race, and ethnicity to bear on the myth of the “self-made man.” Made in America presents the first look at self-made men and women from a multicultural perspective. Jeffrey Louis Decker discusses the emergence of self-starters like Andrew Carnegie, Booker T. Washington, Madam C. J. Walker, Younghill Kang, and Lee Iacocca in relation to the changing consumer markets of the twentieth century. Decker locates the new breed of entrepreneurs within the changing rhetoric of personal success, which shifted its emphasis over the past century from religious “character” to psychological “personality” to celebrity “image.” The book concludes by surveying the life stories of enterprising celebrities such as Oprah Winfrey and Arnold Schwarzenegger. Decker analyzes the autobiographical expressions of famous entrepreneurs, from Carnegie to Ross Perot, alongside more marginal ones in order to examine how mainstream society shapes and is shaped by the cultures of subordinate groups. In addition, he looks at the link between self-making and nation-building, and in doing so discovers the origins of another pervasive myth: the “American dream.” Underlying Decker’s study are these questions: What happened to the myth of self-making in America? If it is dead, what caused its demise? If it lives on, what form has it taken? Written in a lucid and engaging style, Made in America uncovers the richness, complexity, and diversity of self-styled success in our time. By bringing gender, race, and ethnicity to bear on the myth of the “self-made man,” this book provides a timely and fascinating reexamination of a traditional area of inquiry in American cultural studies. 200 pages Translation rights: University of Minnesota Press

Table of Contents

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  1. Cover
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  1. Title Page, Copyright, Dedication
  2. pp. i-vi
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  1. Contents
  2. pp. vii-viii
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  1. Acknowledgments
  2. pp. ix-xii
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  1. Introduction
  1. The Rise of the Self-Made Man and the Triumph of U.S. Nationalism
  2. pp. xvii-xxii
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  1. From Character to Personality to Image
  2. pp. xxii-xxvi
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  1. Multicultural Narratives of Uplift in Twentieth-Century America
  2. pp. xxvii-xxx
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  1. 1 Class Mobility
  1. Moral Luck and the Horatio Alger Formula: Andrew Carnegie
  2. pp. 1-6
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  1. Hard Luck: John McLuckie
  2. pp. 6-9
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  1. The Limits of Luck: James J. Davis
  2. pp. 10-14
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  1. 2 Gender Stability
  1. Troubling the Horatio Alger Formula: Tattered Tom
  2. pp. 15-17
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  1. True Womanhood in the Market: Harriet Hubbard Ayer
  2. pp. 17-24
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  1. Domesticating Business: The “Emma McChesney” Trilogy
  2. pp. 24-30
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  1. 3 Racial Segregation
  1. The Political Economy of a Lynch Mob: Tom Moss, Calvin McDowell, and Henry Stewart
  2. pp. 31-35
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  1. Free Enterprise: Booker T. Washington
  2. pp. 35-41
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  1. Working Wonders: Madam C. J. Walker
  2. pp. 41-52
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  1. 4 Immigrant Aspirations
  1. Out of America: Marcus Garvey
  2. pp. 53-62
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  1. From Steerage to Self-Culture: Mary Antin
  2. pp. 62-70
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  1. Oriental Yankees: Younghill Kang
  2. pp. 70-77
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  1. 5 Individual Enterprise in the Postfrontier Nation
  1. Not-Quite-White Enterprise in the Tribal Twenties: The Great Gatsby
  2. pp. 78-97
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  1. Inventing the American Dream in the Great Depression:The Epic of America
  2. pp. 97-101
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  1. 6 The Ends of Self-Making
  1. Image, Inc.: Howard Hughes, Lee Iacocca, and Ross Perot
  2. pp. 102-112
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  1. Downsizing: Susan Powter and Oprah Winfrey
  2. pp. 112-126
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  1. Epilogue: The Return of the Self-Made Man
  2. pp. 127-134
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  1. Notes
  2. pp. 135-160
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  1. Index
  2. pp. 161-171
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