Blog for Hystory 306

 

“The American dream of a better, richer, and happier life for all our citizens of every rank, which is the greater contribution we have made to the thought and welfare of the word. That dream or hope has been present from the start. Even since we became an independent nation, each generation has seen an uprising of ordinary Americans to save that dream from the forces which appeared to be overwhelming”. [4]

The charter of the American Dream it came to be “The Declaration of Independence”, which was the basis of the American Revolution, the good reason for a little group of men to grab the power from the British. But despite itself and the purpose of the men who signed it, the Declaration resonated far beyond such quite narrow aims; it appeal that has coursed through the core of everyday life since then. [8]

To know more about the Declaration of Independence please click:

The Declaration of the Independence

The element that survives in collective memory and underwrites the American Dream, is the opening clauses of the second paragraph: “all Men are created equal, that they are gifted by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights such as Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.” [38]

The most known of the American Dreams was the upward mobility, a dream typically understood in terms of economic and/or social progress. At the locus of this chapter is Abraham Lincoln, a man broadly regarded as the greatest American. His career is typically focused on finishing the slavery or the preserving of the Union. For him both were means to a larger end: sustaining the American Dream. [8]. Indeed the main reason people from different background and from all over the world come to America is the searching of economic and social advancement for them and their families.

Advancing to the post-Civil War era, one of the most significant and unsuccessful of all American Dreams was: the pursuit for equality, focusing specifically on the struggle of African Americans. Martin Luther King Jr’s genius defined his struggle represented by shared ideals that, like the Declaration of Independence, helped defined the American Dream. [8]

Home ownership’ dream has been present in the American life from the beginning. “It took shape in the years from the passage of the Homestead Act (signed by Lincoln in 1862) to the flowering of suburbia in the second half of the twentieth century. [9].

Although, I have to point out that there is evidence that the foreclosure crisis has changed the way we think about owning a home. The biggest risk that homeowners face now is the decline of the home values. Owning a home today is like a nightmare.

The final American Dream is the personal fulfillment, although very different kind from that of the Puritans or Abraham Lincoln’s. Like the others, its roots go back to the origins of American life, from the adventures seeking unexpected fortunes on the plantations of Virginia to the speculators mining their prospects in western cities like Las Vegas. But nowhere does this dream come more intensely into focus than in the culture of Hollywood, a place where, fame and fortune were all the more compelling if achieved without obvious effort. This dream has become predominant at the start of the twenty-first century. [9]

The Declaration of Independence provides us with principles by which we estimate success but simultaneously calls attention to the breach between what is and what we believe should be; a gap that defines our national experience. The Declaration of Independence was born and lives as the charter of the American Dream. [58]
America defines itself on the set of ideas expressed in the Declaration of Independence. From the beginning to here, the American Dream has fashioned the American nature, furthermore, it constitutes us. Its concept has endured for hundreds of years transcending racial and class.

 

Jim Cullen, The American Dream, A Short History of an Idea that Shaped a Nation, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003). 4.

Jim Cullen, The American Dream, 8.

Jim Cullen, The American Dream, 9.

Jim Cullen, The American Dream, 16.

Jim Cullen, The American Dream, 38.

Jim Cullen, The American Dream, 58