THE AMERICAN DREAM
 America was a ‘New World’ to the people from the Old World’
(Europe).
 America was a land in which to make a fresh start.
 It was a land in which everyone would be successful and equal.
 It also provided an opportunity to get away from the religious and
political intolerance, and the stale ideas of Europe.
The American dream was the chance for individual effort to receive its
just reward, a car in every garage, a chicken in every pot, a cigar in every
mouth that wanted it; where honesty and charity combined with energy
and initiative to create what would become in time ‘God’s Country.’
The following three quotations illustrate the American dream; a belief in
freedom and equality for the American people. Unfortunately life was to
turn out very differently for the majority of Americans, hence the failure
of the American dream.
Quotation 1: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are
created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain
unalienable rights, among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of
happiness. (Declaration of independence July 4th 1776)
Quotation 2: Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth,
upon this continent, a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to
the proposition that ‘all men are created equal’. That nation shall have a
new birth of freedom, and that government of the people for the people,
shall not perish from the earth.
(Gettysburg Address by Abraham Lincoln)
Quotation 3: My fellow Americans, the long dark night for America is
about to end.
The time has come for us to leave the valley of despair and climb the
mountain so that we may see the glory of the dawn – a new day for
America, a new dawn for peace and freedom in the world (Richard Nixon
Presidential Nomination Acceptance Speech, 1968)