A man who has become rich and influential through his own actions, without the help of inherited wealth, powerful friends, or similar assistance. This term originated earlier but came into wide use from the nineteenth century on, when the phenomenon itself became more common. Two twentieth-century writers are among those who used it ironically. “A self-made man is one who believes in luck and sends his son to Oxford,” wrote the novelist Christina Stead (House of All Nations, 1938); and E. B. White (One Man’s Meat, 1944) wrote, “Luck is not something you can mention in the presence of self-made men.”