posted on Jan, 7 2011 @ 08:08 PM
Since its founding in 1776, the United States has regarded and promoted itself as a beacon of liberty and prosperity. The meaning of the "American
Dream" has changed over the course of history. While historically traced to the New World mystique — especially the availability of low-cost land
for farm ownership — the ethos today simply indicates the ability, through participation in the society and economy, for everyone to achieve
prosperity. According to the dream, this includes the opportunity for one's children to grow up and receive a good education and career without
artificial barriers. It is the opportunity to make individual choices without the prior restrictions that limit people according to their class,
caste, religion, race, or ethnicity. Immigrants to the United States sponsored ethnic newspapers in their own language; the editors typically promoted
the American Dream
The American Dream is that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for every man, with opportunity for each according to
ability or achievement. It is a difficult dream for the European upper classes to interpret adequately, also too many of us ourselves have grown weary
and mistrustful of it. It is not a dream of motor cars and high wages merely, but a dream of 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.[1]
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 material plenty, though
that has doubtlessly counted heavily. It has been a dream of being able to grow to fullest development as a man and woman, unhampered by the barriers
which had slowly been erected in the 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.