socks with crocs 2

Originally submitted as my final for HIST-2020. Citations have been removed, since they were mostly bull anyway.

"Look the island!" The cry ran throughout the passengers on the deck. "You can see her arm!" Sure enough, on the horizon a gleam had appeared. All eyes watched with anticipation as lady liberty crept into view astride that beacon of promise: Ellis Island. This was where millions had taken their first steps towards achieving the American Dream for themselves, and it held the same promise for everyone on board. Minds raced as stories of the abounding opportunities suddenly seemed believable. People imagined their future jobs and the regular income they could provide or the open country waiting to be settled; and in both cases, the better life that children and grandchildren would be able to share in.

In the last decade of the 19th century the United States Bureau of the Census recorded immigration numbers exceeding 3.5 million persons, and at the time the rate was accelerating. People don’t pick up and move to a new country in numbers like these without a good reason. The reason for this massive trend is one common definition of "The American Dream." Typical goals for achieving the American Dream are financial success, public acceptance, and self dependence, but for this time period they were all united by the more common goal of assuring one’s descendants could live a better life. This idea of establishing a better life, not just for themselves, but for future generations is the core of a more well-defined American Dream that is best referred to as the traditional American Dream. This distinction is necessary because events of the past 150 years have changed the understood definition of the American Dream so significantly.

Let’s step back several decades from where we opened. When the first colonists arrived in the Americas, the American Dream existed only in spirit. At the time its fulfillment could be typified as finding a plot of land to settle and working it as a family. As time progressed and population rose, social classes formed, and those wealthy plantation owners in the South could be considered to have achieved the American Dream, although on the backs of their slaves. To these Southern upper and middle class, the loss of the Civil War was devastating, not just economically, but to their faith in the American Dream. Some Southern whites simply gave up on the American Dream altogether. Still today we have the ‘white trash’ Southern redneck stereotype of someone who doesn’t care that their standards of living are unusually low in comparison to modern ones.

As the Southern reconstruction programs were ending in the late eighteen-hundreds, the transcontinental railroad had been completed, and Americans had established homesteads and small towns coast to coast. The need for an American Dream for the major ethnic groups (outside of the former slaves) was diminishing as so many had managed to achieve it. Thus came the torrents of new immigrants in search of their own realization of the American Dream, except this time things had changed. The Industrial Revolution was still expanding rapidly and needed workers, providing different opportunities to the new population. These immigrants adopted the hope in the American Dream, trying to find a modern fulfillment of it.

The difference was, in the shift from agriculture to industry, the definition of work had changed. Being independent and self-reliant was no longer ‘living by the sweat of your brow,’ but holding a job that paid well enough to support your family. With the advent of waged jobs, Americans could no longer earn the American Dream through how hard they worked, rather simply how much time they could manage to give up to an often faceless, uncaring employer. To replace these lost rewards for hard work in one’s occupation, a new focus of the American Dream appeared: education. Going to school promised a new environment where hard work would be rewarded with more opportunities, opening the door to better jobs where hard work and skill count more than just hours invested. Compulsory public education had been first established in Massachusetts in 1852 and by 1918, all the states of the time had enacted similar laws, affirming the nation’s strong belief in the necessity of education for the fulfillment of the American Dream.

A few decades later radio had become a staple in American society. The nineteen-twenties were becoming a period of incredible commercial success, in part because of the effectiveness of radio advertising. Naturally, one of the most effective advertising strategies was and still is convincing the public that a product or service is an essential part of the American Dream fulfilled. This modification to included specific brands took a temporary back seat to the pressing matters of the great depression, and the second great war to follow.

The American Dream was not directly affected by the depression of the thirties nearly as much as it was by the legislation of the New Deal that attempted to restore the public’s faith in both the government and the ideals of the American Dream. In 1935 President Roosevelt signed into law a new federal program to give direct financial assistance to qualifying US citizens. This plan to provide so called ’social security’ undermined motivation to work hard and persevere, when one could simply meet a few requirements and begin receiving payments from the government. While many people lost sight of the American Dream after losing so much to the depression, social security only managed to remove another source of motivation to adhere to the hard working ideals of the traditional American Dream.

Thanks to the unifying effects of a major war, a decade and a half later, the American economy had made up its losses and was ready to resume its advertising techniques as usual, except a new technology had changed the playing field again. The popularity of television had left the radio movement in the dust. The old adage "a picture is worth a thousand words" had never been better demonstrated. Bill Levett’s endeavors to bring a modern answer to the American Dream’s requirement of a home for family was so well accepted that the ‘white picket fenced house’ is still a strong part of American Dream imagery today. Besides just the advertisements, the standardization and commercialization of the American Dream was continued by the popular televisions dramas of the time including "Leave it to Beaver" and "All in the Family." Note that the element of family, possibly one of the last remaining ideas true to the traditional American Dream, has managed to remain thus far.

As the population of baby-boomers matured and began swaying society two changes shattered the last remaining threads holding to the traditional American Dream. The first came in the form of the Vietnam War. The ultimately unpopular and lengthy struggle brought the entire American government and its policies under scrutiny and tarnished anything associated with being American. The second came with the sexual revolution, more effective widespread birth control, and the degradation of the family as a core value to the people of the country. The family was the original, deep-seated drive for achieving the traditional American Dream, and without it, the only reasons left to pursue the American Dream are based on selfish ambition.

Once again the American Dream is ready to be picked up by a new group of people. While they may lose their name, the ideas contained within the traditional American Dream will never die. The willingness to work hard and provide a better life for those to come can be seen in the Mexican immigrants, who are increasingly a modern issue of debate. For our country to subvert their attempts at realizing the fading principles of the traditional American Dream is a terrible act of turning our back on history rich with providing opportunities to millions of families from any location in the world. It is time to recognize the millions left in the world still looking for realization of their dreams and embrace the traditional American Dream as the essential piece of our national identity.