From rags to riches
Meaning
This idiom describes a person's journey from extreme poverty and hardship to great wealth and success.
Origin
The alluring narrative of an individual's meteoric rise from utter destitution to immense fortune captured the public imagination in the 19th century, especially in America. This ideal was powerfully cemented by the prolific author Horatio Alger Jr., whose popular dime novels, starting in the 1860s, consistently featured young, virtuous protagonists who overcame extreme poverty through hard work, honesty, and a stroke of luck to achieve material success. Though the phrase itself pre-dates Alger, his stories, often titled with variations like "Ragged Dick; or, Street Life in New York with the Boot-Blacks," epitomized and popularized the "rags to riches" trope, making it a cornerstone of the American Dream and an enduring symbol of upward mobility.
Examples
- Her family immigrated with nothing, but through years of relentless hard work and ingenuity, she built a massive tech company, truly going from rags to riches.
- The legendary investor's life story, starting as an orphan and becoming one of the wealthiest people in the world, is a compelling tale of from rags to riches.