Title: Searching for the American Dream | HuffPost
Headings: Searching for the American Dream
Searching for the American Dream
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The Jeffersonian vision of the American Dream was perfectly suited for the America for the end of the 18th century and for much of the 19th century. There was no aristocracy, and no embedded class system. As late as 1860, over 80 percent of workers were self employed, most of them as farmers. Approximately three quarters of the country’s population lived in rural areas. By the end of the 19th century this world was changing and there emerged the second incarnation of the American Dream — what I call the Horiato Alger phase. Jefferson’s vision of the American Dream was based on the idea of limitless land, but the 1890 census revealed there was no frontier — no unsettled areas left. America went from a nation of farmers and independent craftsman to a nation of employees working for a salary or an hourly wage. As America transformed from an agrarian to an industrial nation the American Dream changed with it. As America became more stratified, as people worked in large hierarchical organizations, the American Dream became a tied to visions of social mobility. The key to realize the dream was not to be independent and self-sufficient but to possess the skills that would allow you to navigate the new industrial order and to rise up through the ranks.