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28 Soc. Probs. 131 (1980-1981)
Whither the Self-Made Man - Comic Culture and the Crisis of Legitimation in the United States

handle is hein.journals/socprob28 and id is 143 raw text is: SOCIAL PROBLEMS, Vol. 28, No. 2, December 1980 WHITHER THE SELF-MADE MAN? COMIC CULTURE AND THE CRISIS OF LEGITIMATION IN THE UNITED STATES* JILL H. KASEN* California State College-San Bernardino In this article I trace shifts in the occupational worldview, and thereby in the myth of the self-made man as a legtimator of class in the United States, as reflected in the American comic strip from 1925 to 1975. In so doing, I investigate not only the crisis of meaning which some now see as increasingly characteristic of all capitalist socie- ties, but also the use and adaptation of this legitimation complex in previous eras of American history. First the self-made man, then the professional, and finally the em- ployee captured the comic stage during the half-century, serving respectively as symbols of promise, security and despair. From an entrepreneurial reality which held out the reward of superiority, strip society became a land of equality and tempted its residents with an initially salubrious but later ill-fated fortune. The world which the self-made man finally produced no longer emphasized the myth of such a man, rely- ing instead upon the notion of middle classlessness. Despite the malaise which cur- rently afflicts American society, middle classlessness (though perhaps in a somewhat altered form) is likely to be the basic legitimator of the American class system for the near future, attended as it is by an individualistic, pluralistic, democratic and egalitarian ethos. From Weber's (1958) analysis of Protestantism and capitalism to Riesman et al.'s (1969) study of conformity in modern America, sociologists have examined the relationship between person- ality and social structure. In the sociology of occupations, such works have frequently contained especially provocative insights into the occupational orientations of distinct societies and ages. Thus, Riesman et al. and Whyte (1957) described the unique personality that typified the middle- class workplace of mid-twentieth century America. Lowenthal (1961) similarly documented the transformation of occupation and class in the United States from 1900 to the 'forties-a transfor- mation suggested by the type of hero found in the popular biographies of each period. The relevance of such works for class analysis has been overshadowed in recent years by studies of occupational prestige rankings. Yet they often provide more interesting indicators of the changing work and status consciousness produced by massive occupational turnovers than do ex- aminations of occupational rankings, which manifest remarkable temporal and cross-cultural consistency in modern industrial societies (cf. Hodge et al., 1969). Focusing upon relations among categories of occupation, these scales cannot uncover shifts in the risk taking, mobility options, security, and autonomy of the occupational orientations of disparate societies. Such works as Lowenthal's The Triumph of Mass Idols are better able to capture similarities, rather than divergences, within distinct occupational realities in a single age. The occupational attitudes they delineate are important components of the legitimating apparatus for class within society. METHOD Here I present the findings of such an analysis of the occupational worldview found within the syndicated comic strips carried by The Philadelphia Evening Bulletin from 1925 to 1975.' Specifi- * I am grateful to the following people for their incisive criticisms of an earlier version of this paper: Peter Berger, Anne Foner, Lynda Glennon, Marilyn Johnson, Harry Klein, Thomas Meisenhelder, Warren Sus- man, and especially to Gaye Tuchman for the time and effort she so generously provided. For correspon- dence about this article: Dept. of Sociology, California State College-San Bernardino, 5500 State College Parkway, San Bernardino, CA 92407. I. Like most afternoon newspapers, The Philadelphia Evening Bulletin is considered to be a working-class paper. Founded in 1847, it is one of the two surviving Philadelphia papers and, with the ninth largest daily circulation in America in 1976 (540,851), constitutes a formidable rival for its more middle-class counterpart,

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