E-Mail to H-Net List for American Studies: >Date: Monday, July 29, 2002 8:00 PM HST

>From: Rob Vaughan <robvaughan@hawaii.rr.com>

In _Made in America: Self-Styled Success from Horatio Alger to Oprah Winfrey_ (University of Minnesota Press, 1992) Jeffrey Louis Decker writes of the origin of the term the "American Dream." He states that "the term was not put into print until 1931, when middle-brow historian James Truslow Adams coined and used it throughout the pages of a book titled _The Epic of America_. ... The American Dream is to be understood as an ethical doctrine that is symptomatic of a crisis in national identity during the thirties. The newly invented dream calls out for a supplement to the outmoded narrative of individual uplift, which had lost its moral capacity to guide the nation during the Depression." [92]

Adams was fully aware that the "American Dream" was a new term and had argued that his editor, Ellery Sedgwick, allow him to use it in the book's title. Sedgwick refused, allegedly saying "no red-blooded American would pay $3.50 for a dream." Adams argued that "Red-blooded Americans have always been willing to gamble their last peso on a dream ...." [n.154-155]

Clearly, the notion of such a dream as a core belief, even a guiding principle, predates Adams' first use of the term in the 1930s. But an interesting idea to kick around, I think, is that it was not until there emerged a profound sense that America had LOST something that the term was actually coined. What was it that folks in the Depression felt they had lost? Perhaps the same things that people still list when describing the American Dream today: individual freedom, social justice, the ability to participate in the consumer economy, and the hope of a better place for one's children.

Selected Bibliography: Books

Adams, James Truslow. The epic of America. illustrated by M. J. Gallagher. Boston, Little, Brown, and Company, 1932. E178 .A259

Akin, William E. Technocracy and the American dream: the technocrat movement, 1900-1941. Berkeley: U of California P, 1977. HB87 .A44

Anderson, David L. The American dream in twentieth-century California fiction. 1983. Microfiche. PS283 .C2 A53

Boorstin, Daniel J. The image; or, What happened to the American dream. NY: Atheneum, 1962. E169.1 .B752

Bormann, Ernest G. The force of fantasy: restoring the American dream. Carbondale: Southern UP, 1985. BV3773 .B67

Brooks, Van Wyck. The dream of Arcadia; American writers and artists in Italy 1760-1915. NY: Dutton, 1958. DG457 .A6 B7

Buckley, William F. ed. Did you ever see a dream walking? American conservative thought in the twentieth century. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill 1970. E743 .B777

Bush, Clive. The dream of reason: American consciousness and cultural achievement from Independence to the Civil War. London: Edward Arnold, 1977. E169.1 .B975

Carter, John. Solomon D. Butcher: photographing the American dream. Lincoln: U of Nebraska P, 1985. TR652 .B86

Calder, Lendol G. Financing the American dream: a cultural history of consumer credit. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton UP, 1999. HG3756 .U54 C35

Calthorpe, Peter. The next American metropolis: ecology, community, and the American dream. NY: Princeton Architectural P, 1993. HT167 .C3

Carpenter, Frederic I. American literature and the dream. NY: Philosophical Library 1955. PS88 .C38

Chenoweth, Lawrence. The American dream of success: the search for the self in the twentieth century. North Scituate, Mass: Duxbury P 1974. HN57 .C53

Chinoy, Ely. Automobile workers and the American dream. Urbana: U of Illinois P, 1992. HD8039 .A82 U63

Comer, James P. Maggie's American dream: the life and times of a Black family. NY: New American Library, 1989. E185.97 .C68 C66

Cowley, Malcolm. The dream of the golden mountains: remembering the 1930s. NY: Viking P, 1980. PS3505.O956 Z464

Nelson, Eugene. Pablo Cruz and the American dream; the experiences of an undocumented immigrant from Mexico. Salt Lake City: Peregrine Smith, 1975. HD8081 M6 C78

Davis, Kenneth S. The hero; Charles A. Lindbergh and the American dream. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1959. TL540.L5 D37

Decker, Jeffrey L. Made in America: self-styled success from Horatio Alger to Oprah Winfrey. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1997. BJ1611 .D36

Dobkowski, Michael N. The tarnished dream: the basis of American anti-Semitism. Westport, Conn: Greenwood P, 1979. DS146 .U6 D6

Dorinson, Joseph, and Joram Warmund. Jackie Robinson: race, sports, and the American dream. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1998. GV865 .R6 A34

Erenberg, Lewis A. Swingin' the dream: big band jazz and the rebirth of American culture. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1998. ML3518 .E74

Flint, Jerry. The dream machine: the golden age of American automobiles, 1946-1965. NY: Quadrangle NY Times Book Co., 1976.TL23 .F58

Hartnett, Koula S. Zelda Fitzgerald and the Failure of the American Dream for Women. NY: Peter Lang, 1991.

Harvey, Sally P. Redefining the American Dream: The Novels of Willa Cather. Rutherford, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson UP, 1995.

| Top | Hayden, Dolores. Redesigning the American dream: the future of housing, work, and family life. NY: W.W. Norton, 1984. HD7293 .H39

Hayes, Charles D. Beyond the American dream: lifelong learning and the search for meaning in a postmodern world. Wasilla, AK: Autodidactic P, 1998. LC32 .H385

Heller, Celia S. New converts to the American dream? Mobility aspirations of young Mexican Americans. New Haven, Conn: College & UP 1971. E184 .M5 H38

Heskin, Allan D. Tenants and the American dream: ideology and the tenant movement. NY: Praeger, 1983. HD7288.85 .U62 C23

Holbrook, Stewart H. Dreamers of the American dream. Garden City, N.Y., Doubleday, 1957. HN57 .H55

Horowitz, Ruth. Honor and the American dream: culture and identity in a Chicano community. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers UP, 1983. F548.9 .M5 H67

Houston, James A. ed. Songs of the dream people; chants and images from the Indians and Eskimos of North America. NY: Atheneum, 1972. Juv 811 HOU

Hoyt, Edwin P. The Guggenheims and the American dream. NY: Funk & Wagnalls 1967. H102.5 .G8 H6

Hsu, Francis L. K. The challenge of the American dream: the Chinese in the United States. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Pub. Co. 1971. E184 .C5 H8

Killian, Lewis M. The impossible revolution? Black power and the American dream. NY: Random House 1968. E185.615 .K48

Korzenik, Diana. Drawn to art: a nineteenth-century American dream. Hanover, NH: UP of New England, 1985. N7477 .K63

Kotter, John P. The new rules: how to succeed in today's post-corporate world. NY: Free P, 1995. HD38.2 .K678

Krajenke, Robert W. The psychic side of the American dream: revitalizing the American spirit. Virginia Beach, Va.: A. R. E. P, 1976. E179 .K702x

Krickus, Richard J. Pursuing the American dream: white ethnics and the new. Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor P, 1976. E184 .A1 K79

Kurtz, Stephen A. Wasteland: building the American dream. NY: Praeger 1973. NA712 K87

Long, Elizabeth. The American dream and the popular novel. Boston: Routledge & K. Paul, 1985. PS374 .B45 L65

Lynn, Kenneth S. The dream of success; a study of the modern American imagination. Boston: Little, Brown, 1955. PS379 .L9

| Top | MacLeod, Celeste. Horatio Alger, farewell: the end of the American Dream. NY: Seaview Books, 1980. HN90.S65 M32

Madsen, Richard. China and the American dream: a moral inquiry. Berkeley: U of California P, 1995. E183.8 .C5 M314

Mailer, Norman. An American dream. NY: Dial P, 1965. PS3525.A4152 A6

Maki, Mitchell T., Harry H. L. Kitano, and S. Megan Berthold. Achieving the impossible dream: how Japanese Americans obtained redress. Urbana: U of Illinois P, 1999. D769.8 .A6 M29

Marchand, Roland. Advertising the American dream: making way for modernity 1920-1940. Berkeley: U of California P, 1985. HF5813 .U6 M26

McLuhan, T. C. and William E. Kopplin. Dream tracks: the railroad and the American Indian 1890-1930. NY: Abrams, 1985. E78 .S7 M38

Messner, Steven F. and Richard Rosenfeld. Crime and the American dream. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Pub. Co., 1997. HV6022 .U6 M47

Miles, Rufus E. Awakening from the American dream: the social and political limits to growth. NY: Universe Books, 1976. HN59 M528

Muller, Gilbert H. New strangers in paradise: the immigrant experience and contemporary American fiction. Lexington: UP of Kentucky, 1999. PS374 .I48 M85

Nixon, Howard L. Sport and the American dream. NY: Leisure P, 1984. GV706.5 .N59

O'Kane, James M. The crooked ladder: gangsters, ethnicity, and the American dream. New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, 1992. HV6197 .U5 O43

Perrett, Geoffrey. A dream of greatness: the American people, 1945-1963. NY: Coward, McCann & Geoghegan, 1979. HN58 .P38

Ringer, Robert J. Restoring the American dream. NY: Harper & Row, 1979. H106.7 .R44

Rivlin, Alice M. Reviving the American dream: the economy, the states & the federal government. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1992. HJ3258 .A2 R57

Ropers, Richard H. Persistent poverty: the American dream turned nightmare. NY: Plenum P, 1991. H110 .P6 R65

Rosen, Marjorie. Popcorn Venus; women, movies & the American dream. NY: Coward, McCann & Geoghegan 1973. PN1995.9 .W6 R6

| Top | Rosenberg, Emily S. Spreading the American dream: American economic and cultural expansion, 1890-1945. NY: Hill and Wang, 1982. E744 .R82

Samuelson, Robert J. The good life and its discontents: the American dream in the age of entitlement, 1945-1995. NY: Vintage Books, 1997. HJ7543 .S26

Schneirov, Matthew. The dream of a new social order: popular magazines in America, 1893-1914. NY: Columbia UP, 1994. PN4877 .S36

Smith, Leverett T. The American dream and the national game. Bowling Green, Ohio: Bowling Green U Popular P,1975. GV706 .S6

Stern, Robert A. M. Pride of place: building the American dream. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1986. NA705 .S74

Terkel, Studs. The great divide: second thoughts on the American dream. NY: Pantheon Books, 1988. E839 .T47

Thompson, Hunter S. Fear and loathing in Las Vegas: a savage journey to the heart of the American dream. NY: Warner Books, 1982. PN4874 .T444 A33

Tyson, Lois. Psychological Politics of the American Dream: The Commodification of Subjectivity in Twentieth-Century Literature. Columbus: Ohio State UP, 1955.

Umphlett, Wiley L. Mythmakers of the American dream: the nostalgic vision in popular culture. NY:Cornwall Books, 1983. E169.1 .U52

Ward, Maybelle, and Warren Marr. eds. Minorities and the American dream: a bicentennial perspective. NY: Arno P, 1976. E184 .A1 M543

Warner, W. Lloyd. American life: dream and reality. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1953. HN57 .W33

Wright, Esmond. The American dream: from Reconstruction to Reagan. Cambridge, Mass: Blackwell, 1996. E661 .W75

Wright, Louis B. The dream of prosperity in Colonial America. NY: NY UP, 1965. E188 .W84

| Top | Selected Bibliography: Articles 

Auchincloss, Louis. "The American Dream: All Gush and Twinkle." Readings on The Great Gatsby. Ed. Katie Koster. San Diego, CA: Greenhaven, 1998. 83-86.

August, Eugene R. "Our Stories/Our Selves: The American Dream Remembered in John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath." University of Dayton Review 23.3 (Wint 1995-96): 5-17.

Briley, Ron. "Meet John Doe, Frank Capra, and Baseball: The Celebration and Dark Side of the American Dream." Literature Film Quarterly 25.3 (1997): 204-13.

Cadegan, Una M. "Neither Tired nor Poor nor Huddled: Emma Goldman and the Limits of the American Dream." University of Dayton Review 23.3 (Wint 1995-96): 47-53.

Callahan, John F. "F. Scott Fitzgerald's Evolving American Dream: The 'Pursuit of Happiness' in Gatsby, Tender Is the Night, and The Last Tycoon." Twentieth Century Literature 42.3 (Fall 1996): 374-95.

Clum, John M. "'And Once I Had It All': AIDS Narratives and Memories of an American Dream." Writing AIDS: Gay Literature, Language, and Analysis. Eds. Timothy Murphy and Suzanne Poirier. NY: Columbia UP, 1993.

Davis, Rocio G. "Amy Tan's The Kitchen God's Wife: An American Dream Come True in China." Notes on Contemporary Literature 24.5 (Nov 1994): 3-5.

Edington, K. "The Hollywood Novel: American Dream, Apocalyptic Vision." Literature Film Quarterly 23.1 (1995): 63-67.

Green, Douglas B. "The Singing Cowboy: An American Dream." The Country Reader: Twenty-Five Years of the Journal of Country Music. Ed. Paul Kingsbury. Nashville: Country Music Fndtn., with Vanderbilt UP, 1996. 21-73.

| Top | Haggins, Bambi L. "There's No Place Like Home: The American Dream, African-American Identity, and the Situation Comedy." Velvet Light Trap 43 (Sprg 1999): 23-36.

Lupack, Alan. "An Enemy in Our Midst: The Black Knight and the American Dream." Cinema Arthuriana: Essays on Arthurian Film. Ed. Kevin J. Harty. NY: Garland, 1991. 29-39.

Marsh, Joss L. "Fitzgerald, Gatsby, and The Last Tycoon: The 'American Dream' and the Hollywood Dream Factory, I." Literature Film Quarterly 20.1 (1992): 3-13.

- - -. "Fitzgerald, Gatsby and The Last Tycoon: The 'American Dream' and the Hollywood Dream Factory-Part Two." Literature Film Quarterly 20.2 (1992): 102-08.

Morman, Paul J. "Thomas Jefferson and the American Dream." University of Dayton Review 23.3 (Wint 1995-96): 21-29.

Orvell, Miles. "Documentary Film and the Power of Interrogation: American Dream and Roger and Me." Film Quarterly 48.2 (Wint 1994-95): 10-19.

Poznar, Walter. "Hud: The American Dream and the Void." Literature Film Quarterly 21.3 (1993): 230.34.

Price, Darby Li Po. "'All American Girl' and the American Dream." Hitting Critical Mass 2.1 (Wint 1994): 129-46.

Schubnell, Matthias. "The Farmer as Cultural Model: Neighbor Rosicky's American Dream." Nebraska English Journal 37.1 (Fall 1991): 41-50.

Smyth, Jacqui. "Getaway Cars and Broken Homes: Searching for the American Dream Anywhere But Here." Frontiers 20.2 (1999): 115-32.

Stewart, Grace. "Diversity and the American Dream." Private Voices, Public Lives: Women Speak on the Literary Life. Ed. Nancy O. Nelson. Denton: U of North Texas P, 1995. 250-60.

MLA Style Citation of this Web Page

Reuben, Paul P. "PAL: Appendix S: The American Dream." PAL: Perspectives in American Literature- A Research and Reference Guide. URL:http://www.csustan.edu/english/reuben/pal/append/axs.html (provide page date or date of your login). 

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