During the 1930s what was the american dream

In his book, The Epic of America , which was published in , Adams describes that dream:. Adams was careful to say the American dream was not just a desire for affluence, but historian David Farber says the term quickly came to include it. The American dream "became closely linked to material comfort, to the consumer abundance America was producing. So there's a kind of linkage between mobility, a better life, and the good stuff that would make it so. President Roosevelt launched programs to spur housing construction during the Depression.

Here men build a house in The seeds of the modern expectations about the American dream were planted during the nation's biggest 20th century bust: the Great Depression. Early in his administration President Franklin D. Roosevelt initiated a series of programs, the New Deal, to jumpstart the economy. Among the programs was the National Housing Act, designed to spur home construction and home ownership. Home ownership was not common at the turn of the 20th century.

Lizabeth Cohen, author of A Consumer's Republic: The Politics of Mass Consumption in Postwar America , says even upper middle-class people rented: "They didn't think they needed to buy a home to establish themselves.

To own a house back then, people normally had to save up virtually all the money they needed to buy it. If they got a mortgage it was for a short period of time and usually required at least half the purchase price.

If a family did buy a home, it was often later in life. It was not a rite of passage into adulthood. The New Deal began to change all that.

So the government started to insure mortgages and encouraged stretching them over a longer period so the payments were more affordable. Likewise, the government expanded sewer systems, paved roads and in other ways created the infrastructure to support new housing. When President Roosevelt delivered his State of the Union address, on January 11, , the United States had been at war for two full years.

It would be another year before World War II finally ended, but the government was already concerned about what to do about all the G. The U. The government didn't want to repeat the same mistake. Bill Transformed the American Dream. This time, the number of returning vets was staggering. Columbia University. National Archives. Encyclopedia Britannica. United States Census Bureau. Census Bureau. Small Business Administration.

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James Truslow Adams described it as "that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement. Homeownership and education are often seen as paths to achieving the American dream. Though the definition of the American Dream has changed to mean different things to different generations, it's undoubtedly part of the American ethos, and likely always will be.

Pros The American dream promises freedom and equality. Cons The reality of the American dream often falls short of the idea itself. As income inequality has increased, the American dream has seemed less attainable. Article Sources. Investopedia requires writers to use primary sources to support their work. These include white papers, government data, original reporting, and interviews with industry experts.

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Compare Accounts. Adams first used the phrase in the preface to a book entitled "The Epic of America," a historical account of the United States, explains Time. Although Adams coined the phrase "American Dream," he took no credit for the ideal behind it, and claimed it was the goal of Americans all along. He believed the promise of something better is what drives Americans, even in tough times. Adams' philosophy was significant because he conceived the term "American Dream" in the midst of the Great Depression, a time of economic recession following the stock crash of During the Great Depression, as many as 15 million people were unemployed and almost half of all banks closed.