How the American Dream Has Changed Over
Time
Gale Student Resources in Context, 2016
The beginnings of the idea of the American Dream can be traced to the Founding Fathers, who
declared their independence from England because of their belief in unalienable rights. Those men
believed people inherently possessed the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. They
created a country where people could break free from class restrictions and pursue the life they chose
despite the circumstances of their birth. In time, writers dubbed this idea the American Dream, but
people’s definition of the American Dream has changed greatly over time.
Origins
The term American Dream is often traced back to James Truslow Adams, a historian and author. In
1931, as Americans suffered through the Great Depression, Adams wrote a book called The Epic of
America in which he spoke of “a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone,
with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement … regardless of fortuitous circumstances
of birth or position.” In the beginning, the American Dream simply promised a country in which people
had the chance to work their way up through their own labor and ingenuity. Immigrants fled the
entrenched class restrictions of their homelands for the United States in the hope of obtaining land and
gaining religious and other freedoms.
Revolutionaries fled England in search of freedom. This promise of a better life attracted people from
all over the world to the United States. They came to America ready to work hard.
Evolution of the American Dream
Colonial America saw the dream realized in the interaction among classes. People of the time wrote
about the new experience of equality. Employees could speak openly to their employers and believed
that with dedication they could improve their status. During westward expansion, the American Dream
led many to race for land and live rugged lives on the frontier. By nature of their hard work, they could
set down roots on a piece of the expansive land open to homesteaders and pioneers. This idea of the
American Dream was rather competitive and individualistic—people fought others to own a piece of
land for themselves. In the early twentieth century, Americans discovered a shared dream in which
citizens worked together to make life better for the American masses. Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s
(FDR’s) New Deal programs promised safe, healthy futures for every American—a new
understanding of the American Dream.
Many people who encouraged Americans to get involved in World War II did so believing that people
all over the world deserved their chance to realize the American Dream. Participating in the war
allowed Americans to put their national concept of idealism on display for the world. Americans fightingin the war were fighting for the preservation of the American Dream, which was summed up by FDR
as the possession of four essential freedoms: freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom from
want, and freedom from fear. People who could feed their families, keep them safe, worship as they
pleased, and say how they felt were living the American Dream, he said.
After World War II, men returned from the war with a new American Dream in mind. Americans
fantasized about homes filled with happy families who vacationed every summer. Veterans used the
GI Bill to obtain low-interest mortgages on homes, resulting in a building boom and the creation of
suburbs across the United States. The American Dream became closely tied to home ownership, and
the American marketplace filled up with products to help improve life at home.
The American Dream transformed into an ideal that relied on people being able to afford all the
modern accessories: cars, television sets, and college educations for one’s children. Television
greatly helped define the American Dream as the acquisition of material goods. Americans dreamed of
living ideal lives like those portrayed in shows such as Leave It to Beaver and Father Knows Best.
Many Americans fueled their purchase of the new American Dream with credit cards, a choice that
eventually affected the state of the American Dream.
The Modern American Dream
As more people used credit to purchase goods, Americans accrued a lot of debt. Keeping up with the
American Dream was growing into a costly endeavor. People still strived for lives like the ones they
saw on television. Those televised lives were becoming increasingly extravagant and unrealistic,
however. Furthermore, saving was no longer necessary. The American Dream could be purchased on
credit.
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