You’ve probably heard someone or other say “pull yourself up by your bootstraps.” It can refer to any situation in which someone prevails through solitary hard work, and is often used to describe getting oneself out of a difficult socioeconomic situation, usually without any outside help. It’s most commonly used in America, which indeed is strongly associated with the idea—better known as the “American dream”—that anyone can make it if they just put in the effort.

There’s one problem with the old bootstraps line, though. “Pull yourself up by your bootstraps” actually originated as a sarcastic phrase that was used to refer to someone trying to do something that simply cannot be done.

Where “Pull Yourself Up By Your Bootstraps” Came From

According to etymologist Barry Popik and linguist Ben Zimmer, the first recorded precursor to the bootstraps phrase appears in a 1834 newspaper article. This article was about a man named Nimrod Murphree, who claimed to have cracked the secret to perpetual motion—an achievement that scientists have long known to be resolutely impossible. In response, the paper teased, “Probably Mr. Murphree has succeeded in handing himself over the Cumberland river, or a barn yard fence, by the straps of his boots.”

The term bootstraps generally refers to the little straps on the backs or sides of boots that could be used to help a person pull on their shoes. “Of course bootstraps wouldn’t actually help you pull yourself over anything,” Zimmer said to HuffPost. “If you pulled on them, it would be physically impossible to get yourself over a fence. The original imagery was something very ludicrous, as opposed to what we mean by it today of being a self-made man.”

In the 19th and early 20th century, variations on the the phrase appeared a few more times in print, always as a way to poke fun at attempts to do the impossible. “When steam was turned on, the pressure in both ends of the cylinder was perfectly balanced through this connection and the piston could not move any more than a man can lift himself by his bootstraps,” read a paragraph in a 1908 issue of Popular Mechanics.

A sentence in The North American Review, meanwhile, described an act that, “though not so palpably absurd, [is] still of the same character as the efforts of the man who should essay to lift himself by the straps of his boots.” 

When you think about it, it’s an absurd image—trying to lift yourself off the ground by pulling on a strap on the back of your boots. So how did this phrase become associated with self-sufficiency?

How “Pull Yourself Up By Your Bootstraps” Evolved

The first recorded use of the phrase in the context it is typically used in today may be a line in James Joyce’s famously linguistically experimental Ulysses. “There were…others who had forced their way to the top from the lowest rung by the aid of their bootstraps,” Joyce wrote in the 1922 classic.

Still, even as it evolved towards its current use, “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” retained some of its absurdity. A 1927 article in the British Sunday Times made fun of Americans’ obsession with progress by poking fun at the term “bootstrapper.” 

“The great American ideal is that everybody should become something he is not. The great American tragedy is to remain what you are. Resulting from this theory of progress and happiness is the phenomenon of the American bootstrapper,” read the editorial. 

“Now, every one has heard of the American bootlegger. But the bootstrapper is an even greater national figure, just as the feat of ‘lifting oneself by one’s bootstraps’ is an almost entirely American accomplishment.[…]” it continued. “There is this further disadvantage, speaking nationally, that there are more second rate people in first class positions than there ought to be. This is all right so long as there is plenty of room for the first rate man who has no capacity for bootstrapping and so long as there is no sudden crisis.”

Over the years, in a way no one can clearly pinpoint but that may have something to do with the American cultural emphasis on individualism that defined the mid-20th century, “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” transformed from a phrase filled with ridicule and sarcasm to a serious directive meant to inspire rugged self-reliance. 

The Meaning of “Pull Yourself Up By Your Bootstraps” Today

The idea that it is possible to “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” remains a pervasive cultural theme among many Americans today. Alternatively, the idea that it is possible to “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” and succeed on one’s own has been endlessly critiqued—even early American pioneers who first settled the American West often did so with government assistance, and so on—but that remains a separate topic of debate. 

Additionally, according to some psychologists, “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” may also be a harmful piece of advice when it comes to the idea that you can simply wrest yourself out of a psychological quagmire through solitary willpower alone.

Meanwhile, the phrase “bootstrap” or “bootstrapping” has also branched off into several different realms of meaning. In the early days of computers, the term “bootstrapping” was used to describe the process of slowly loading code into computers until they turned on. This led to the rise of the term “boot up,” which, in turn, has led to the modern slang expression “boot up,” which may refer to getting something started, using drugs, or being in a relationship, depending on spelling, pronunciation, and life choices.

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