Was a Self-Made Man?

"Self-made man" is a classic phrase coined on February 2, 1842 by Henry Clay in the United States Senate, to describe individuals whose success lay within the individuals themselves, not with outside conditions. ... By the mid-1950s, success in the United States generally implied "business success".

What is self-made man?

Self-made men are the men who, under peculiar difficulties and without the ordinary helps of favoring circumstances, have attained knowledge, usefulness, power and position and have learned from themselves the best uses to which life can be put in this world, and in the exercises of these uses to build up worthy ...

Who was the first self-made man?

3.1 Benjamin Franklin. Benjamin Franklin is often called the first self-made man of USA. His life gives the biographical pattern from which all other self-made men stories have been cut.