American Dream

The "American dream" is the easy availability of upward mobility for Americans. It means an open society with considerable movement up and down over the generations, as opposed to tightly structured society in which the status of ancestors determines one's life chances.

Historian James Truslow Adams (1878-1949) was the first to identify and name "the American dream" in terms of the full realization of human potential:

The American Dream is that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement. It 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. 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.