Americans apply a two-word adjective to their business heroes. He is self-made. The phrase was strong enough to survive being used by a man born into slavery.
Frederick Douglass delivered a lecture called “Self-Made Men” beginning in 1859. His definition was severe. Self-made men “owe little or nothing to birth, relationship, friendly surroundings.”
Douglass gave one explanation for success. Self-made men, he said, are “men of work.”