Title: The American Dream in the Twentieth Century | Encyclopedia.com
Headings: The American Dream in the Twentieth Century
The American Dream in the Twentieth Century
The American Dream in the Twentieth Century
Introduction
Small-Town Life
Questioning Conventions
The Depression
Emerging Superpower
Disillusionment
Modern War
Counterculture
Age of Excess
The Dream versus Reality
Conclusion
SOURCES

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The American Dream in the Twentieth Century
The American Dream in the Twentieth Century
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The American Dream in the Twentieth Century
Introduction
The American dream has long been an ideal of prosperity not just for Americans, but for people across the globe. The promise of freedom and a better life drew hopeful immigrants before there was even a country to call home, and has continued to draw countless millions ever since. In the 1900s, the backgrounds of people dreaming the dream had never been broader. The economic ups and downs of a century had never been sharper. The scope of international interest and impact had never been wider. As the modern age arrived and cynicism began to rival idealism in the national mindset, the dark lining of the American dream loomed large in twentieth-century literature. Small-Town Life
Just after the beginning of the twentieth century, one widely accepted literary vision of the American dream involved life in a small, tightly knit community where residents were free from secrets and ill will. This idealized vision of a perfect American town, far removed from the tumult of the rest of the world, became a symbol for how the United States viewed itself in the larger community of the world. The reality of American small-town life may not have matched this vision very closely, but it was not until just prior to World War I that American writers began to explore this discrepancy in a meaningful way. Edgar Lee Masters, in his poetry collection Spoon River Anthology (1915), employs an ingenious technique for stripping away the rigid customs and traditions of American small-town life: