American Dream Defining the American Dream

People have talked about a concept called the American Dream for many years, but the definition is difficult to pin down. The reason for this is that as the situations in the country change, so does the view people have of what the American Dream represents. The purpose of this paper is to define what the American Dream is from history, the generally accepted meaning of the term, and how that definition may have changed over the past couple of years.

History shows that the concept of the American Dream began with the "discovery" of the Americas. Whether the explorer was Leif Erickson or Christopher Columbus, all of the people who have come to these shores have dreamed of something better. As a matter of fact;

"The idea of an American Dream is older than the United States, dating back to the 1600s, when people began to come up with all sorts of hopes and aspirations for the new and largely unexplored continent. Many of these dreams focused on owning land and establishing prosperous businesses which would theoretically generate happiness, and some people also incorporated ideals of religious freedom into their American Dreams" (wiseGeek).

People immigrated to the new American colony because England did not put any religious restrictions on the people who came here. Also, theaverage person could not own land in Europe, or at least not very much land because it was all the property of the state or of the rich nobility. People heard of the vastness of America, and they wanted to have a piece of land that they could call their own. From the beginning, the American Dream was about doing everything possible to live the life that one was divinely created for.

In common parlance, the American Dream has been described as "an idea which suggests...

Because people have been historically less restricted from achieving in the United States, it has always been believed that any person who wants to can do anything that they set their mind to. This has been called the "Puritan work ethic," or some other name that implies the same thing. People who were originally coming to America had to work very hard just to survive. Even today, the people who achieve the most personally are the ones who are willing to work the hardest.
In one study conducted by Deborah Abowitz, college students were polled to see if they still believed in the traditional American Dream. She found that

"college students today generally do believe in the achievement ideology and the openness of the American class system. Their views are derived from an idea of success as a meritocratic "contest" for social mobility in which an individual's effort and abilities count for more than family and personal connections in the race for the American Dream" (Abowitz).

This means that young people in today's society still hold to the belief that people in America are able to do anything that they set their minds to. If someone invents something, works hard at the lower levels of a company, or dreams of becoming the President of the United States, it is there for them to achieve. These college students went on to express that "The idea of achievement in an open system of contest mobility is based on the norm of ambition. Those who work hard earn their advantages. They deserve to live well" (Abowitz).

Another view is that the American dream is more social. In her book Psychological Politics of the American Dream, Lois Tyson said "The American Dream is a social…