American Self-Making and Self-Help

Freedom

Money

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Rebellion

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The American Dream

Figures who represent the American Dream

Marco Rubio

"My father stood behind a small portable bar in the back of a room for all those years, so that tonight I could stand behind this podium in the front of this room"

His story shows the traditional version of "American Dream", his family started with nothing in a new country but he was able to work hard, get a good education, and became a senator. Demonstrating a version of success.

Child of Cuban immigrants, come from humble origins, and has worked hard to be considered successful.

Costica Bradatan

Immigrant from Romania, humble origins, comes to United States to be successful.

"For I knew right away that America’s noisy worshiping of success, its mania for ratings and rankings, the compulsive celebration of perfection in everything served only as a facade. Behind the optimistic veneer there lies an extraordinary fear of failure: the horror of going down and going under, of losing face and respectability, of exclusion and marginalization. It’s not success but failure the savage fear of it that lies at the heart of the American dream. The country is custom made for an aficionado of failure like me".

His view on America is completely opposite on the American Dream. He views the US as a facade, because success has been derived behind people raised with a fear of success.

Benjamin Franklin

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"I saw the justice of his remarks, and thence grew more attentive to the manner in writing, and determined to endeavor at improvement. About this time I met with an odd volume of the Spectator. It was the third. I had never before seen any of them. I bought it, read it over and over, and was much delighted with it. I thought the writing excellent, and wished, if possible, to imitate it".

Idea of a self-made man, humble beginnings, became one of America's most successful self-made man.

Benjamin's mindset at the time, he saw writing as the key to his success and fully committed himself to his hard work ethic, which will lead to him becoming so successful and an embodiment of the american dream.

Slavery

Declaration

Breaking away from government, became its own independent country.

John Adams

His wife Abigail Adams wrote a letter stating that women's rights should not be left out when fighting for the US independence from Great Britain.

“I long to hear that you have declared an independency. And, by the way, in the new code of laws which I suppose it will be necessary for you to make, I desire you would remember the ladies and be more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the husbands".

Fredrick Douglas

"I would this bag, and there sleep on the cold, damp, clay floor, with my head in and feet out. My feet have been so cracked with the frost, that the pen with which I am writing might be laid in the gashes".

National leader and activist of the abolitionist movement against slavery. Former slave, who escaped, wrote antislavery writings .

He wrote his autobiography to share his experience as a slave and how he escaped slavery. Broke the barrier and fought against slavery, becoming on of the most important figures for the abolishment of slavery.

Phillis Wheatley

"While freedom's cause her anxious breast alarms, she flashes dreadful in refulgent arms. see mother earth her offspring's fate bemoan, and nations gaze at scenes before unknown; See the bright beams of heaven's revolving light. Involved in sorrows and the veil of night".

Phillis Wheatley used her poetry to fight against the inequality encouraged by slavery. Her poetry was seen as a threat to society but with time she was used as an example to prove that no race is superior than another.

First black poet in English, second American woman poet.

Anne Hutchinson

"Mrs. Hutchinson we come for plain dealing and telling you our hearts. Then I said I would deal as plainly as I could, and whereas they said I say they were under a convenant of works and in the state of the apostles why these two speeches cross one another. I might say they might preach a convenant of works as did the apostles, but to preach a convenant of works and to be under a covenant of works is another business".

Broke 5th comandment, and was imprisioned due to meetings she was having with men and women. She was banished out of jurisdiction as being a women not fit for society. Also was thought of as a witch because there could not be any other reason why men would be compelled to listen to her preachings as she was only a women, so why were men listening to her.

Called by troubling the peace of the commonwealth and the church. She went against the law of God and of the state.

Edgar Allan Poe

"And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side of my darling my darling my life and my bride, In her sepulchre there by the sea. In her tomb by the sounding sea".

He was seen as a rebel because of the nature of his poems, he said things that no one had every really wrote about. He was a mystery, and wrote a poem about his dead lover who he talks about in a odd way as she is in fact dead. Many more of his poems were out of nature and still seen as a mystery today. He broke the barriers of American literature and lead us to where we are now.

American poet, greatly impacted american literature.

Wealth

Poverty

John Winthrop

"Thus stands the cause between God and us. We are entered into convenant with him for his work. We have taken out a commission. The Lord hath given us leave to draw our own articles".

Claims that excessive wealth leads your heart away from god. Wants the people with wealth to display mercy and charity to the entire community.

English Puritan Lawyer

Jacob Riis

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Progression

Booker T Washington

" In all things that are purely social we can be as separate as the fingers, yet one as the hand in all things essential to mutual progress"

He became a positive leader in promoting African American education. The five fingers was his explanation that even though race separates them from white all man are equal and the same like fingers are attached to the hand.

Born into slavery, cast your bucket down, five fingers, beginning with economics(working from bottom to top), Founder of Tuskegee university.

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W.E.B Du Bois

"If we make money the object of man training, we shall develop money makers but not necessarily men; if we make technical skill the object of education, we may possess artisans but not,in nature, men. Men we shall have only as we make manhood the object of the work of schools intelligence, broad sympathy, knowledge of the world that was and is, and of the relation of man to it this is the curriculum of that Higher Education which must underlie life."

This quote explains his theory of the Talented 10th, meaning that Black education shouldn't include a focus on the practical skill but that African Americans should have knowledge to make them stand out in the society we live in.

First African American PH.D from Harvard, The Talented 10th, focused on education and growing through it

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“one half of the world does not know how
the other half lives.”

He really helped out bring awareness to how the other half of american lives, its not always luxury and he really focused on the living conditions people were forced to live in New York.

Initiated reforms toward better living conditions for the thousands of people living in horrible living conditions, special focus on children.

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Andrew Carnegie

Led the expansion of the American steel industry in the late 19th century

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Owner of Carnegie Steel, Self Made Millionaire, one of the wealthiest men in America.

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Horatio Alger

"I have mentioned Dicks faults and defects, because I want it understood, to begin with, that I don't consider him model boy. But there were some good points about him nevertheless. He was above doing anything mean or dishonorable. He would not steal or cheat or impose upon younger boys, but was frank and straightforward manly and self-reliant. His nature was a noble one, and had saved him from all mean faults. I hope my young readers will like him as I do, without being blind to his faults."

He symbolizes the myth that hard work and honesty will help overcome obstacles and lead to success.

Best selling author, Wrote Rags to Riches novels for children, books inspired its reader to work hard and persevere through adversity.

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Industrial Modernity

Henry Ford

"Any man can learn anything he will, but no man can teach except to those who want to learn."

He was able to invent several vehicles and he changed the auto industry forever by introducing the assembly line. He impacted the way we produce cars now.

Standardization, Alienation of Labor, Assembly Line, He revolutionized assembly line production for cars.

Fredrick Winslow Taylor

'' In the past the man has been first; in the future the system must be first.”

Taylor believed that it was the role and responsibility of manufacturing plant managers to determine the best way for the worker to do a job, and to provide the proper tools and training.

Taylormade, engineering as Utopia, he is the father of scientific management.

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Changes in America

Teddy Roosevelt

Teddy Roosevelt helped seal the embodiment of the Ideal Boy in America. Created this ideal image of a solider and the new meaning of being a man.

''He must not be a coward or a weakling, a bully, a shirk, or a prig. He must work hard and play hard. He must be clean-minded and clean-lived, and able to hold his own under all circumstances and against all comers. It is only on these conditions that he will grow into the kind of American man of whom America can be really proud."

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Charlotte Perkins Gilman

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Wrote a story that's main focus showed how a women who was depressed/ neurotic was being left alone in a room for days. This showcased how much women's mental health was being disregarded and her husband(doctor) was telling her she was going to get better. Still ignoring her own words about how she felt.

" I wonder how it was done and who did it, and what they did it for. Round and round and round - round and round and round - it makes me dizzy! I don't blame her a bit. It must be very humiliating to be caught creeping by daylight ! I always lock the door when I creep by daylight. I can't do it at night, for I know John would suspect something at once."

Fought for Women's Domestic rights and women's suffrage

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The Jazz Age

Francis Scott Fitzgerald "Echoes of the Jazz Age"

Drinking, middle class, jazz, no interest in politics. People were drinking and living carelessly, which was a complete switch, people did not care about the effects that could be caused by the way they were living their life. They basically had no expectations for their future problems.

“It was an age of miracles, it was an age of art, it was an age of excess and it was an age of satire.”

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Sinclair Lewis "Babbit"

Skyscrapers, Consumerism, and Conformity. Mass culture/Advertising, Social climbing/social conformity, Loss of other values.

“You're so earnest about morality that I hate to think how essentially immoral you must be underneath.”

The Babbit is a satirical novel about American culture and society that critiques the middle class life and the social pressure toward conformity. The Babbit really exemplified the epitome of the way of thinking during the Jazz Age.

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Dorothy Parker "The Waltz"

Changes for women, 19th amendment women get to vote, women take white collar jobs, birth control movement goes mainstream, more choices, the "flapper".

"I'm so glad I brought it to his attention that this is a waltz they're playing, Heaven knows what might have happened, if he thought it was something fast; we'd have blown the sides right out of the building".

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This is a story told through dance, focuses on a couple who are having problems dancing together, which has a connection to social conformity and what is expected from them by society. This story highlights the independence and identity of the male and female.

Depression-Era

Dale Carnegie and Self-Help

"Criticism is futile because it puts a person on the defensive and usually makes him strive to justify himself. Criticism is dangerous, because it wounds a person’s precious pride, hurts his sense of importance, and arouses resentment"

Carnegie thought that criticism, although it could be good, some people don't take it well, so if you want people to like you, you need to make sure you aren't criticizing people hardly.

Shifting from technical skills to social skills, ways to make people like you, rules to make your home life happier. Carnegie produced one of the first books that introduced the idea of self-help books, where he gave advice to appreciate people and never criticize people.

The Self-Help Formula

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Positive mindset + Good Attitude+ Hard Work= Success

AA "The Big Book"

1935, Bill Wilson, a modern disease, related to depression.

"We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable"

Alcoholism and how it was described in The Big Book, they connected it to God, and how you should seek prayer and meditation to be able to connect to God, and he will basically sure your "disease".

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Ralph G. Martin

Life in the New Suburbia, he is encouraging the new suburban lifestyle. Reinforces the idea of women as invisible labor.The suburbs were mostly meant for white middle class families.

"The notable characteristic of these developments is that they emerge out of nothingness and in a few months a community is formed. The result is a new way of living and a new kind of person, what might be called the Development Type.”

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Women Through History

Pyllis Schlafly

Audre Lorde

Criticizing "academic feminism". She speaks out about women who are not white, and still are viewed as different. She uses emotion as a tool for empowerment and self-expression.

"The beginning of a new era, where the 'women' in women's studies will no longer mean 'white."

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Conservative activist, wanted to stop ERA arguments for women because she said ti would lead to drafting women, less financial support from men, why should women want to take away their special privileges.

"Children are a woman’s best social security—her best guarantee of social benefits such as old age, pension, unemployment compensation, workman’s compensation, and sick leave. The family gives a woman the physical, financial and emotional security of the home—for all her life".

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Betty Friedan

According to Friedan, "the problem that has no name" is what gave rise to the "feminine mystique" in post-World War II America. The woman who came home, took care of the house and kids, but nevertheless felt unfulfilled by her life is the person with this enigmatic condition that goes unnamed.

She protested about women not being able to live and pursue their own passions. In a way women were robbed of their own life ambitions.

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"She was so ashamed to admit her dissatisfaction that she never knew how many other women shared it. If she tried to tell her husband, he didn't understand what she was talking about. She did not really understand it herself. For over fifteen years women in America found it harder to talk about the problem than about sex. Even the psychoanalysts had no name for it."

Money will always be something that is related to success for many Americans. For centuries money has been a deciding factor for valuing peoples worth. To this day to many people that is what they strive for in their life.

Martin Luther King Jr.

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He fought during the Civil Rights Movement and was a leader for many African Americans. He became one of the most important people that fought for equal rights.