The social fabric of America began as a melting pot which has continued to evolve over time. Many people in early American society were established individuals with their own families that claimed a belonging to specific reformed communities. These utopian states were based upon the notion that breaking apart from the social norms of everyday life offered extrinsic rewards of both hope and temperament. Sociologically, people often become blinded by their surroundings mainly due to their creature of habit mannerisms that so often they forget to see the bigger picture. A radiating example of this psychological behavior is demonstrated in the theatrical playwright Death of a Salesman. Arthur Miller puts the reader in the perspective of the character Willy Lowman, thus allowing a front row seat into his past and present life through his conscious thoughts of pursuing the American Dream. Although the very ideology of the “American Dream” differs based upon each individual definition of success, historical outcomes have challenged how this has transformed over generations. Our nation’s founding is the vital starting point to locate the genesis of the ever developing “American dream” which is rooted amongst religious, economic, and social freedoms.
To begin with, in the early 1600’s many immigrants left England because of religious persecution, and set their sights on the New World. The massive North American continent was rich in both land and resources which benefited the immigrants and the mother country. The central focus of the migration at the time was freedom, and England benefited by gaining economic wealth. This immigration crucially marks the creation of what would soon be known as the “American dream.” Equally important, the settlers of Massachusetts, the Puritans, migrated to the New World because of their religious disagreements with the Church of England. Many Puritans felt the Church of England did not provide a thorough teaching of the Bible. Puritans firmly believed in predestination which is the belief that man is altogether dependent upon God for his salvation. “This faith in reform became the central legacy of American Protestantism and the cornerstone of what became the American Dream”(Cullen 15). The dedicated ambition of establishing religious freedom sparked diversity throughout many of the Thirteen Original Colonies. “Though limited by the boundaries of Protestant faith and culture, the colonies themselves nevertheless exhibited a tremendous diversity: Congregationalists in Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New Hampshire; Anglicans in Virginia, Georgia, and the Carolinas; Baptists in Rhode Island; Anglicans and Catholics in Maryland; Anglicans, Dutch Calvinists, and Presbyterians in New York and Maryland; and Pennsylvania, as the New England consensus had it, was nothing less than “a swamp of sectarianism”(Hunter 68). These diverse religious sects can be interpreted as examples of early reform utopias that parallel the American Dream. Despite all of these religious differences, each of these states unified to form freedom within the United States. In fact, the interconnected dream many colonists valued eventually collided with England leading to the Revolutionary War. A new dream was beginning.
The next element causing a historic shift in the “American Dream” was the Declaration of Independence. “The key to the Declaration, the part that survives in collective memory and which underwrites the American Dream, is the opening clauses of the second paragraph: “We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness”(Cullen 38). As previously mentioned, diversity among these religious communities were examples of reform for the better. An emphatic correlation of the religious “American Dream” lies within Declaration of Independence. “By the time the Declaration of Independence was introduced in Congress in 1776, much of what would become the United States had already been inhabited by British and other European colonists for well over 150 years”(Cullen 41). An argument can be made that the capitalization of the word “Creator” is hinting towards a higher deity/God that these immigrants were worshiping.
Furthermore, proof of this religious parallel is demonstrated through the establishment of utopian societies within the Age of Reform during the 1800’s. The most compelling example of this evidence lies within the Shaker community. Their utopia was widely regarded as an escape from the evils of the world. “Religious communities attracted those who sought to find a retreat from a society permeated by sin”(Foner 413). The Shakers held family values to such a high peak that it transferred over in their fellowship. “They completely abandoned traditional family life. Men and women lived separately in large dormitory-like structures and ate in communal dining rooms”(Foner 413). Their communal behavior as a society was very democratic. “Communes, such as Shaker settlements that developed, are organized so that everyone shares in the decision making and economic output”(Schaefer and Zellner 67). Despite leaving out many of society’s rules the Shakers were the largest and most prosperous reform group of the 1800’s. “The Believers are also credited with a number of inventions, such as the circular saw, brimstone match, screw propeller, cut nail, clothespin, flat broom, pea sheller, paper seed packers, threshing machine, revolving oven, and a variety of machines for turning broom handles, cutting leather, and printing labels”(Schaefer and Zellner 96). A majority of these inventions although improved upon, are used by many of us today and aid in contributing to the “American Dream”.
The final component of the “American Dream” begins yet again with strong divided opinions that jar the struggle for equality in society. New inventions in the 1800’s aided an economic boom across the North with the establishment of cities, and in the South slaves were vital to the farming industry. The issue of slavery began to challenge the “American Dream”. “Indeed, while slavery had been a powerful presence in American life for well over two centuries by 1850, it was increasingly considered a threat to the Dream of Upward Mobility by a small but growing number of people”(Cullen 74) Aside from the major disputed issue, which was slavery, there were many other undetermined issues that ultimately brought our country to war. The heated debate about rights of the individual states, unfair taxation, economic, and social differences, was all on the plate of Abraham Lincoln when he became president of the United States. The Declaration of Independence and its interpretation was challenged by the shift in/of the “American Dream”. During his presidency, Abraham Lincoln was raspingly critiqued about the way he was guiding the United States; it was not until after his assassination that his efforts to end slavery became his greatest accomplishment. In Debating the Great Emancipator: Abraham Lincoln and our Public Memory, Kirt Wilson quotes Lincoln:
“I adhere to the Declaration of Independence. If Judge Douglas and his friends are not willing to stand by it, let them come up and amend it. Let them make it read that all men are created equal, except negroes.” The Declaration of Independence may not mean that black and whites are the same in color, Lincoln declared, “still, in the right to put into his mouth the bread that his own hands have earned, he is the equal of every other man, white or black.” (Wilson 459)
After years of violent battles and war ravaging through our country, we, as a nation could finally begin to heal. The nation heard the cry for unity in the Gettysburg Address and that cry, that prayer, that undying dream President Abraham Lincoln had, was answered with the surrender of the Southern army in Virginia later that year.
Upon final analysis, the “American Dream” has adhered to the Declaration of Independence, and since the Civil War the hopes of equal rights are still being sought to this day. In the book Culture As History Warren I. Susman states: “By 1922 an exceptional and ever-growing number of Americans came to believe in a series of changes in the structure of their world, natural, technological, social, personal, and moral”(Susman 106). Interestingly enough it feels as if America shifted back to the early 1800’s after the Civil War ended. The Gypsies, Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Wicca, Scientologists, Isalm, and the Father Divine Movement are a few of religious groups that have relevance in today’s world. This challenges us to think and ask the question. Is the “American Dream” any different than it was back then? When settlers from Europe came to America, they were looking for an escape from religious and social persecutions. Our American freedoms we have today and the promise of “Life”, “Liberty”, and the “Pursuit of Happiness” are exactly what the early colonists had in mind. This is the “American Dream”.
Works Cited
Cullen, Jim. The American Dream . New York : Oxford University Press, 2003.
Foner, Eric. Give Me Liberty! An American History. New York:: W.W. Norton, 2005.
Hunter, James Davison. Culture Wars . Basic Books , 1991.
Schaefer, Richard T. and William W. Zellner. Extraordinary Groups . New York,NY: Worth Publishers , 2008.
Susman, Warren I. Culture As History . New York,Ny: Random House Inc., 1984.
Kirt H. Wilson. “Debating the Great Emancipator: Abraham Lincoln and our Public Memory.” Rhetoric & Public Affairs 13.3 (2010): 455-479. <https://muse.jhu.edu/article/405026>
