In his 2000 book Creating the Modern Man, cultural historian Tom Pendergast traced the way in which the concept of the self-made man was referenced in men’s magazines from 1900 through 1950.[29]:10 Pendergast divided masculinity into only two periods: Victorian, which was “based on property-ownership and family”, and “post-Victorian”, which was “based on a cult of personality, self-improvement, and narcissism”.[30] He described the “ideal Victorian man” as a “property owning man of character who believed in honesty, integrity, self-restraint, and duty to God, country, and family”.[29]:10 The post-Victorian image of the self-made man was crucial to Pendergast’s study. He revealed how through magazines men “were encouraged to form their identities around an ideology of hard work.”[29]:10
In September 2011, Elizabeth Warren challenged the concept of the self-made man in a video that went viral,[31] garnering over one million views on YouTube:[32]
There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody … You built a factory out there? Good for you. But I want to be clear: you moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for; you hired workers the rest of us paid to educate; you were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn’t have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory, and hire someone to protect against this, because of the work the rest of us did. … Now look, you built a factory and it turned into something terrific, or a great idea? God bless. Keep a big hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along.
— Elizabeth Warren, Massachusetts Senate candidate (2011)
