Made in America

The author analyzes the autobiographical expressions of famous entrepreneurs, from Andrew Carnegie to Ross Perot, alongside more marginal ones, such as Oprah Winfrey and Arnold Schwarzenegger, to examine how mainstream society was and is shaped by the cultures of subordinate groups. He looks at the link between self-making and nation-building and reveals the origins of a persistent myth of the 'American dream'. 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, 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.