Self-Made Men and Women
People who became wealthy starting from nothing
(excluding people in literature, the arts, and sports.)
- Abramovich, Roman
- Bokassa I
- Brady, John Green
- Brown, Leslie Calvin
- Bustamante, William Alexander
- Catherine I
- Cerullo, Morris
- Chanel, Gabrielle Bonheur
- Clinton, William Jefferson
- Cochran, Jacqueline
- Ellison, Lawrence J. (Larry)
- Glazier, Sidney
- Jackson, Andrew
- Jobs, Steven Paul
- Massow, Ivan
- McDaid, Desmond
- Monaghan, Thomas
- Morley, Eric Douglas
- Myners, Paul
- Nanbaree
- Nguyen, Martine (see under Bokassa I)
- Perkins, Charles
- Pidgley, Tony
- Radisson, Pierre-Esprit
- Reynolds, George
- Richardson, Anna Ryder
- Robbins, Harold
- Spencer, Percy LaBaron
- Stanhope, Albert
- Templer, James
- Thomas, R. David
- Walker, C.J.
- Weinstock, Arnold
- White, Donald Edwin
- White, Eartha Mary Magdalene
- Wilkins, George
- Zhang Xianzhong (under Sun Kewang)
Abramovich, Roman
Abramovich was born in Saratov in southern Russia. His mother died when he was 18 months old, and his father was killed in a construction accident when he was four. He was first taken to li... [more]
Bokassa I
Jean-Bédel Bokassa was born to a married couple, and his father was a chief. His father was murdered by the French colonial occupiers when he was six, and his mother committed suicide a wee... [more]
Brady, John Green
Brady was born in New York. His mother died when he was very young. His father remarried, but Brady seems to have been unhappy with his step-mother, and he ran away from home when he was ei... [more]
Brown, Leslie Calvin
Brown and his twin brother, born in a Miami ghetto, were adopted at six weeks of age by a single woman. He was hyperactive as a child and labeled a slow learner. After high school he bec... [more]
Bustamante, William Alexander
Little is known for certain about Bustamante's early life, which he seems to have deliberately concealed or fabricated, but he was probably born in Jamaica into poverty, one of 13 children,... [more]
Catherine I
Marta Skavronskaya was born a peasant in what is now Latvia, orphaned when three years old and fostered by a Lutheran pastor named Glück. In 1702 she was taken prisoner during a war with Ru... [more]
Cerullo, Morris
Cerullo was born the fifth child of a Jewish family but his mother died when he was very young and his father placed him in an Orthodox orphanage. One of the staff there converted him to ev... [more]
Chanel, Gabrielle Bonheur
Chanel was illegitimate, one of probably six children, although her parents married in 1885. She later surrounded her early life in romantic inventions, but the facts seem to be that her fa... [more]
Clinton, William Jefferson
President Clinton's father was killed in a car accident shortly before he was born. His mother remarried in 1950 and he was adopted by his step-father. He was governor of Arkansas, and US ... [more]
Cochran, Jacqueline
Cochran was born sometime between 1906 and 1910, and was orphaned as a baby. She was a foster child in a feckless, poverty-stricken family (she got her first pair of shoes when she was eigh... [more]
