Wednesday's Random Slang-o-rama: Pull oneself up by the bootstraps

Ohhhh  the holidays are over, and boy do I feel it. January stretches before me, dark and cold. Well, no time for muddling about. It's time to pull myself up by the bootstraps and march forward into 2022.

Speaking of pulling and bootstraps, how old would you guess the phrase pulling oneself up by the bootstraps is? And where it first appeared? It sure has an "Old West" feel to it, don'tcha think?

>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
Well, the The Phrase Finder claims this phrase, meaning to improve one's situation (or to succeed) by one's own efforts, was in use by the early 20th century. James Joyce alludes to it in his 1922 tome, Ulysses, in the sentence "There were others who had forced their way to the top from the lowest rung by the aid of their bootstraps." 

This isn't early enough for me, and has me wondering if I should search my Silver Rush books to see if I ever mention bootstraps in this idiomatic manner. However, not all is lost, because Wiktionary puts first use much earlier, claiming 1834:

In original use, often used to refer to pulling oneself over a fence, and implying that someone is attempting or has claimed some ludicrously far-fetched or impossible task. Presumably a variant on a traditional tall tale...

World Wide Words has a long piece on boot and bootstrapping, which talks some about this phrase. (The post also notes that "[a] bootstrap is not a bootlace, by the way, but a pair of loops inside the top of a heavy riding boot, something to pull on to get the foot past that awkward bend at the ankle.") WWW adds details re: the "tall tale" origin as well:

The idea of lifting oneself off the ground by pulling on [bootstraps] is sometimes said to date back to a tall story included by the German writer Rudolph Raspe in his book of 1785, Baron Munchausen’s Narrative of his Marvellous Travels and Campaigns in Russia, in which the famous Baron saved himself by this incredible feat. Some versions of Rudolph Raspe’s book include an incident in which he hauls himself (and his horse) out of the mud by lifting himself by his own hair. This is so similar an idea that it is highly likely that it is indeed the source. But somewhere along the way the story became modified to refer to bootstraps — this seems to have originated in the USA early in the nineteenth century; at least, the phrase was well known in that country by the 1860s.

1860s? That's more like it! And no less a publication than the New York Times provides a link, which names this 1834 reference and provides the quote, as follows (plus many other mid-19th century quotes):

1834 _Workingman's Advocate_ 4 Oct. 1/1 "It is conjectured that Mr. Murphee will now be enabled to hand himself over the Cumberland river or a barn yard fence by the straps of his boots." [APS]  

An unsuccessful attempt to make it over a fence using bootstraps.

So, there we go! I think a 19th-century yank on those bootstraps to attempt the impossible and absurd (although maybe not the merely difficult) has been vindicated. Which means we, in the 21st century, can pull ourselves up by our bootstraps and maybe, by current definitions, succeed! (Whereas my 1880s fictional characters, alas, would probably not.)