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Make Your Own Job

How the Entrepreneurial Work Ethic Exhausted America
By Erik Baker and Madeleine Baker
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Brief Description
A sweeping new history of the changing meaning of work in the United States, from Horatio Alger to Instagram influencers. How Americans think about work changed profoundly over the course of the twentieth century. Now, it's not enough for a worker to be reliable; they are... Read More
Format: Paperback / softback
$6700

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Make Your Own Job charts the transformation of the American work ethic in the twentieth century. It is no longer enough to be reliable; now, workers must lead with creative vision. Baker argues that the entrepreneurial ethic has been a Band-Aid for a society in which ever-mounting precarity discredits the old ethics of effort and persistence.

Book Hero Magic formatted this description to make it easier to read. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Description

A sweeping new history of the changing meaning of work in the United States, from Horatio Alger to Instagram influencers.

How Americans think about work changed profoundly over the course of the twentieth century. Now, it's not enough for a worker to be reliable; they are also increasingly expected to show initiative, creating new opportunities for themselves and their employer. Our culture of work today is more demanding than ever, even though workers haven't seen commensurate rewards.

Make Your Own Job explains how this entrepreneurial work ethic took hold, from its origins in late nineteenth-century success literature to the gig economy of today. Business schools and consultants exhorted managers to cultivate the entrepreneurial spirit in their subordinates, while self-help authors synthesized new ideas from psychology into a vision of work as "self-realization." Policy experts embraced the new ethic as a remedy for poverty. Everyone got on board: Marcus Garvey and Henry Ford, Avon ladies and New Age hippies.

Historian Erik Baker argues that the entrepreneurial ethic has given meaning to work in a world where employment is ever more precarious—and in doing so, has legitimized mounting economic insecurity and inequality. Where work is hard to find and nostrums about diligent effort fall flat, the advice to "make your own job" keeps hope alive.

Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9780674306158

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Format: Paperback / softback

Date Published: 08 September 2026

Country: United States

Imprint: Harvard University Press

Audience: Professional and scholarly

DIMENSIONS

Width: 140.0mm

Height: 210.0mm

Weight: 0g

Pages: 352

Collections

American & Canadian History Business & Entrepreneurship Erik Baker History & Archaeology History & Military Madeleine Baker Non-Fiction Start-ups & Entrepreneurship

About the Author

Madeleine Baker is College Fellow in the History of Science at Harvard University. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times, the New Yorker, Harper’s, The Nation, and The Drift, where she is Senior Editor.

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  • Make Your Own Job
    A sweeping new history of the changing meaning of work in the United States, from Horatio Alger to Instagram influencers. How Americans think about work changed profoundly over the course of the twentieth century. Thrift and persistence came to seem old-fashioned. Successful workers were increasingly expected to show initiative and enthusiasm for change—not just to do their jobs reliably but...
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