How did the american dream change throughout the 20th century?

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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