Title: American dream | Definition of American dream at Dictionary.com
Headings: American Dream
American Dream
noun
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American Dream
noun
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American Dream

Content: The American Dream is the aspirational belief in the U.S. that all individuals are entitled to the opportunity for success and upward social mobility through hard work. Where did the term American Dream come from? We can anchor the underlying philosophy of the American Dream in the founding documents of the United States, such as the 1776 Declaration of Independence: “ We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” We can also locate the spirit of the American Dream in seminal studies of the American experience, like Alexis de Tocqueville’s 1835 Democracy in America, where he describes “the charm of anticipated success.” The specific phrase, however, emerges in the early 20th century. One of the earliest instances, in David Graham Phillips’s 1910s novel Susan Lenox, characterizes fashion and home magazines as promising a “rise of fortune” that is “the universal American dream and hope.” A 1916 article in The Chicago Tribune also speaks of fighting for “the American idea, the American hope, the American dream…”. It was historian James Truslow Adams, however, who cemented the concept and phrase: The American Dream.