Title: Searching for the American Dream | HuffPost
Headings: Searching for the American Dream
Searching for the American Dream
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Content: Poor working conditions, long hours, and low wages often defined the urban workplace. Beginning at the turn of the century, progressive reforms on the local, state, and, eventually, the federal level, pushed for new regulations to provide for safe water and food, limit child labor, regulate hours, and improve work conditions. Teddy Roosevelt first articulated this new view of the American Dream during his unsuccessful 1912 campaign for the presidency. He claimed that the concentration of wealth and power in the hands of big business required the federal government to assume the responsibility to guarantee the promise of “life, liberty and happiness.” While T.R. offered rhetorical support to the new view of the Dream, it was his cousin Franklin who institutionalized it as a part of American life. His New Deal programs, created in the midst of the Great Depression, established a precedent that if you played by the rules, and worked hard, or wanted to work hard, but suffered temporary setbacks, the government, and particularly the federal government, would provide both a handout and a hand up. After World War II, the FDR vision of the Dream gave way to what I refer as the “King and Consumption” phase. There were two key components to the modern version. First, there was a dramatic expansion of the Dream to include groups that had previously been excluded from American life. There has always been a contradiction at the heart of the American dream.