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The History of The American Dream
So what is the American Dream? What does the concept that people are writing, arguing, and making movies about mean? It would be untrue to say that its whole essence boils down to material stuff only. This is not true at all. And what is it then?
The term American Dream itself emerged quite recently, first encountered in the historical treatise by James Adams, The Epic of America, written in 1931, during the Great Depression.
Although many, apparently, are sure that this term appeared at the dawn of the emergence of the United States, almost immediately after the American Revolutionary War, and even better, from the very moment of the founding of the first North American colonies. In fact, this is not the case, but the foundations and principles of American Dream were indeed formed in those distant times. When immigrants arrived in America to create their future, they saw this country as their chance to succeed in life.
How the Concept of The American Dream Was Born?
In the old times, a rigid social hierarchy prevailed, when a person could take that place under the sun, which was due to his birth in the corresponding class. The social elevator, as they say now, not only didn’t work - it hadn’t even been invented yet. The material wealth of a person directly depended on the social status: the poor remained the poor, and the sons of the kings and barons held high places, allowing them to provide themselves well. And this was considered a normal thing. Equality of opportunities in Europe was then not only never heard of, but could not even dream of.
And when people from Old Europe arrived in the United States - the cherished land, located so far away that it was possible to reach it only after a month of sailing on the ship they felt real freedom and opportunities that were available to everyone. Such freedom created the first understanding of the American Dream as a way to be free and capable of everything. New uninhabited lands, a lot of uninhabited lands were available to the eternally landless people, impoverished European peasants forced to hump from dawn to night on landowners - aristocrats, to get the only possibility of not dying from hunger.
After moving to such fertile land, they received the opportunity to work for themselves and build their material well-being directly dependent on their work. And if the first immigrants still adhered to the tenets of the Bible and the rules of strict Puritan communities, limiting attempts at personal enrichment, then in subsequent generations of immigrants, family clans and groups of like-minded people had an opportunity to separate from the community and create wealth for themselves. Such opportunities created an idea that in America you can achieve everything you want by working hard. People called this concept the American Dream only later in time.
There were no prohibitions and prejudices of Old Europe in America back then, everyone could independently, depending only on their personal qualities, achieve either success, and therefore wealth, or defeat, that is, remain poor. Compared to mossy Europe, it was truly a paradise for people.
And such a scenario was the dream of many people who lived in completely different conditions in Old Europe. And it came true in America, it was the American dream. And when people around the world do not get the opportunity to achieve something in their homeland that they deserve in terms of their personal goals they want to achieve the American dream.
Conclusion
Today, the United States of America positions itself as a country of equal opportunities, and it is difficult to disagree with this, but equal opportunities do not mean social equality and general prosperity. Here you have to pay in full for all the delights and benefits of civilization. Those who understand this will face hard but highly paid work, those who do not understand may face bitter disappointment.