What Is The Idea Of The American Dream

Our entire country, from our morals to our economy to the spark that ignited the revolution, is based on the famous idea of the “American Dream”. This is the idea that our land is one of opportunity, that draws people in to start a fresh life and try to strike it rich. This is the idea of owning private land, something all to themselves. The beautiful green plains and the bustling cities of the North are glamorized to the point where America seemed like a haven to the people in other countries. It was a place where miracles happened everyday to the most common of people. Somebody who came from nothing could grow to become a respected leader. But what the citizens of America did not realize was that somebody who was well off could plummet to the bottom just as easily. They didn’t realize that there were no miracles that didn’t come from hard work, that they couldn’t just strike it rich and climb the ranks without effort. They didn’t realize how hard it was, how gruesome America really was for the people who couldn’t get lucky, who couldn’t afford to feed themselves.They didn’t realize that the American Dream was exactly what it is defined as; just a dream.

The Great Depression shattered the American Dream in one swift blow. Families fell into poverty, parents could no longer provide for their children. It seemed that all of America had just gone downhill. The roaring twenties bred cockiness in our nation. We were growing richer by the second, and everyone seemed to be making it big in the cities. Because of that cockiness, average people went broke as the roaring twenties quickly faded in the Great Depression, and “the dust-blown interior of the United States was full of families... whom poverty had forced off their land and into a life of wandering. Their poverty was total; they had nothing”