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In the midst of the Great Depression an American historian published a
voluminous study, in which he dealt with what he called THE AMERICAN
DREAM. He thus coined a term which has since become the wideIy used
and hotly contested catchphrase for the basic Iure and promise of
America. Since nobody has yet been able to come up with a generally
accepted definition of THE AMERICAN DREAM , it seems only logical that
any consideration of this charged concept should begin with Adams´ text.
Below you find some excerpts from his book:
f the things already Iisted were all we had had to contribute, America
would have made no distinctive and unique gift to mankind. But there has
been also THE AMERICAN DREAM, the dream of a land in which life should
be better and richer and fuller for every man, with opportunity for each
according to his ability or achievement. lt is a difficult dream for the
European upper classes to interpret adequately, and too many of us
ourselves have grown weary and mistrustful of it. lt is not a dream of
motor cars and high wages merely, but a dream of a social order in
which each man and each woman shall be able to attain to the fullest
stature of which they are innately capable, and be recognized by others
for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth or
position. [...]
o, THE AMERICAN DREAM that has lured tens of millions of all nations
to our shores in the past century has not been a dream of merely
material plenty, though that has doubtless counted heavily. lt has heen
much more than that. It has been a dream of being able to grow to fullest
development as man and woman, unhampered by the barriers which had
slowly been erected in older civilizations, unrepressed by social orders
which had developed for the benefit of classes rather than for the simple
human being of any and every class. And that dream has been realized
more fully in actual Iife here than anywhere else, though very imperfectly
even among ourselves. [...]
he point is that if we are to have a rich and fuII life in which all are to
share ard play their parts, if THE AMERICAN DREAM is to be a reality, our
communal spiritual and intellectual life must be distinctly higher than
elsewhere, where classes and groups have their separate interests,
habits, markets, arts and lives. lf the dream is not to prove possible of
fulfillment, we might as well become stark realists, become once more
class-conscious, and struggle as individuals or classes against one
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another. lf it is to come true, those on top, financially, intellectually, or
otherwise, have got to devote themselves to the “Great Society”, and
those who are below in the scale have got to strive to rise, not merely
economically, but culturally. We cannot become a great democracy by
giving ourselves up as individuals to selfishness, physical comfort and
cheap amusement. The very foundation of THE AMERICAN DREAM of a
better and richer life for all is that all, in varying degrees, shall be capable
of wanting to share in it. lt can never be wrought into a reality by cheap
people or by “keeping up with the Joneses”. There is nothing whatever in
a fortune merely in itself or in a man merely in himself. lt all depends on
what is made of each. [...]
f we are to make the dream come true we must all work together, no
longer to build bigger, but to build better. In a courtry as big as America it
is as impossible to prophesy as it is to generalize, without being tripped
up, but it seems to me that there is room for hope as weIl as mistrust.
The epic loses all its glory without the dream. The statistics of size,
population, and wealth would mean nothing to me unless I could still
believe in the dream. [...]
e have a long and arduous road to travel if we are to realize our
AMERICAN DREAM in the life of our nation, but if we fail, there is nothing
left but the old eternal round. The alternative is the failure of selfgovernment, the failure of the common man to rise to full stature, the
failure of all that THE AMERICAN DREAM has held of hope and promise for
mankind.
James Truslow Adams, The Epic of America (1931)