Jeffrey Louis Decker – författare

The first look at self-made men and women from a multicultural perspective.Brings gender, race, and ethnicity to bear on the myth of the “self-made man.”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, Younghill Kang, 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.Decker analyzes the autobiographical expressions of famous entrepreneurs, from Carnegie to Ross Perot, alongside more marginal ones in order to examine how mainstream society shapes and is shaped by the cultures of subordinate groups. In addition, he looks at the link between self-making and nation-building, and in doing so discovers the origins of another pervasive myth: the “American dream.”Underlying Decker’s study are these questions: What happened to the myth of self-making in America? If it is dead, what caused its demise? If it lives on, what form has it taken? Written in a lucid and engaging style, Made in America uncovers the richness, complexity, and diversity of self-styled success in our time. By bringing gender, race, and ethnicity to bear on the myth of the “self-made man,” this book provides a timely and fascinating reexamination of a traditional area of inquiry in American cultural studies.200 pages Translation rights: University of Minnesota Press

The story of how an Italian American housewife and community organizer battled a Brooklyn Mafia boss and political activist for the hearts and minds of a white working class in revolt.Bronze Winner of the 2025 Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Award in the Biography categoryThis is the true story of a rivalry between a pair of improbable social justice crusaders––Mary Sansone, an Italian homemaker, and Joe Colombo, a Mafia boss––set against the backdrop of Brooklyn's racial and ethnic feuds of the 1960s and 1970s. From her basement kitchen, Mary Sansone launched the Congress of Italian American Organizations, a social-action coalition operating multimillion-dollar programs on behalf of the Italian poor. From his office suite high above Madison Avenue, Joe Colombo defied omertà to commandeer the Italian American Civil Rights League, an audacious anti-defamation organization that convinced thousands to join sidewalk pickets and mass demonstrations. When, around 1970, Mary and Joe's paths finally cross, they battle each other for the hearts and minds of a white working class in revolt. This book challenges stereotypes of the docile Italian wife and the parochial Mafioso by recasting these actors as a rebel girl and a renegade wiseguy. It offers an alternative history of the 1960s and 1970s, when it was presumed that white ethnics living in urban America were predisposed to responding to the civil rights movement with backlash and the women's movement with scorn.