The History of American Dream—A review on Out of Our Past:The Forces That Shaped Modern America

李洁

Abstract:The American ideals and values as the internal live forces have always been underlying in the development of the American society and playing a decisive role at the turning points of progress of America. They constitute the dream of the American people and guide the direction of history.

Key words:American dream

The following is just my understanding of the answer given by Degler to the question “How did Americans get to be the way they are? ” in this book.

The approach Degler has adopted in writing history has provided us with a new insight in understanding American history. Departing with the traditional method of writing history in a descriptive way, Degler views American history as a living piece of pottery shaped by the Americans as a people as well as economic and social forces. He emphasizes the role that ideas, beliefs and values of the people have played in molding modern America.

Deeply rooted in the heart of American people, American dream embodies ideas as equality of opportunity, beliefs in freedom and democracy, individualism, humanitarianism, social justice. These ideas and values serve as threads which bind the past to the present and interplay with the economic and social forces in shaping modern America.

The formation of American dream is an evolving process, and its origin has to be traced back to the history of settlement on the new land. As Tocqueville states in Democracy in America, the circumstances which accompanied the birth of a nation and contributed to its development affect the whole term of his being. The free and vast wilderness certainly played its role in the growth of America. The availability of land and the possibility of a good life resulting from individual ownership of land fostered the idea that wealth, rather than family or tradition in Europe, would be the primary determinant of social stratification. Another influential force is certainly Puritan ideas. Different from the medieval and aristocratic notions concerning the degrading nature of trade and business, Puritanism stressed work and wealth accumulation and connected godliness and worldly success closely by advocating “to work hard is to please God.”On the other hand, the Puritans attached great importance to the idea of social obligation, which, to some extent, could counterbalance the negative effect of capitalism. The Puritan was a “moral athlete” as well. Due to their belief in the depravity of human nature, they strove to attain a high moral standard to keep them from degradation. Puritanism was also one of the principal sources to understand individualism.

What is equally noteworthy in the era of Jackson was the bursting forth of humanitarianism. The reformers in this period attached more importance to natural laws and natural rights. Pity for the oppressed and mistreated was a conspicuous element, which paved the way for the coming upheaval concerning the issue of slavery.

The Civil War has been regarded as one of the two revolutions that America has passed through since the founding of the United States（the other is the Great Depression）and it has changed the direction of the progress of American society with its overwhelming force.

The significance of the civil war lies in two aspects:one is the confrontation and readdressing the moral issue regarding slavery and the emergence of nationalism. The civil war was a testing ground of American values of equality, liberty and democracy. As an inheritance from the colonial period, slavery was common to all the states in America and was an apparent denial of American prevailing principle of equality of all men. With the change of morals over time, the abolishment of slavery was more a moral issue than an economic and political one. Considering the overall morality and widespread values of America and Europe in the nineteenth century, people who still “adhere to a slave system inevitably became a people different from those opposing it.” Facing the South's choice of slavery and determination to separate from the Union, the North had to fight for the social equality of Negroes on the one hand and the survival of the whole nation on the other. The nationalism as well as the humanistic belief in the equality of all man and political freedom seized the imagination of some people and led the country into the war. With the victory, the union was reserved and a new nation with strong federal government came into being. Nationalism was a new element injected into American Dream by the Civil War which taught the American people that the Union should be cherished and it is “indestructible.”

The wealth, the values like equality of opportunity and the image of America as a free and open land was always attracting great floods of immigration. The immigrants have made great contribution to the industrial development of America. At the same time they have changed the political landscape in America by exercising their rights of voting and have exerted some influence on American foreign policy. Actually Degler argues that the immigrant was in favor of the traditional and the accepted in religion, politics and economics and tended to be a conservative force in America. The diversity of nationalities and religions in America constituted a noticeable feature of American society under the new forces.

Industrialization sped up the commercialization and mechanization of agriculture and thus freed more people from land. The surplus labor flooded to the cities seeking “more favorable surroundings or enlarged opportunities”. Thus urbanization as a force was starting to play its role in shaping modern America. Characterized by social pressure, impersonality, diversity and fluidity, urban life in America was closely associated which morality trends. However, the declining function of churches in cities led to churches' shifting attention to social issues and by associating the ethics with social issues, churches has transformed American Protestantism to social gospel. The core of the social doctrine is still a powerful force in the Puritan theological ideas, peculiar of America. Concerned with the poor and the weak and the social injustice, the ministers of social gospel set out reform movements and social protest and utilized the religious heritage to the fulfillment of the American Dream of justice, equality and opportunity. The reformers in the Progressive era led social reforms as a response to the social failures brought about by industrial expansion and urbanization. Progressivism offered the countermeasures to eliminate the negative consequences of “the city and the factory”, which could possibly destroy American ideals as equality of opportunities, social justice and just and good government. They exposed corruption between business wealth and politics and the squalor and congestion of cities. They attacked the unjust treatment of woman and child labor. They tried to improvement the business responsibility and called for a new morality. All their measures and actions provided the evidence that the ideals developed in the earlier history were still cherished by the American people. The essence of Progressivism was a revitalization of traditional American ideal deriving from the Protestant social ethics and the political idealism of the early republic. The Progressivism set a good example of American conservatism by adhering to the old American ideals, which aspire to a free, open, just and democratic society.

The Great Depression of the 1930's stood as another significant moment in the American history. Fraught with economic and social problems like industrial stagnation, financial crisis, starvation, unemployment and social instability in the 1930's, the whole nation was at a turning point. Economically the most striking transformation in American thought concerned the role of the federal government. During the depression, the national government assumed a new and active role by exerting influence and control in the economy and taking up its social responsibilities. The result of the government's action was the New Deal, whose influence reached almost every aspect of American life during that historic period and that it has left the impress on modern America. However, we have to realize that no matter what kind of innovation the government, its primary goal was the guaranteeing of a minimum standard of welfare for the people of the nation. Delger certainly agrees that the ideas behind the New Deal were not new. As the initiator of the New Deal, Franklin Roosevelt declared that “The New Deal is an old deal—as old as the earliest aspiration of humanity for liberty and justice and the good life.”These aspirations lie in the center of American Dream. The depression cast a doubt on the American people's belief in the limited power of the federal government and convinced them of the necessity of its intervention in economic and social issues. Abandoning the doctrine of laissez faire which dominated the American economy for over a century, the modern government commits itself more to the general welfare by establishing social security system and dealing with its agriculture problem ignored by private enterprise. With the Wagner Act came the revolution in governmental attitudes toward organized labor. On the side of unionization, the government regarded it as its duty to protect a worker in the free exercise of the right to join a union. All the examples given here can illustrate the hard fact that the federal government has been playing more and more significant role in the modern American society and it helps preserve the American Dream which the Americans have always treasured and been proud of.

In summary, the American ideals and values as the internal live forces have always been underlying in the development of the American society and playing a decisive role at the turning points of progress of America. They constitute the dream of the American people and guide the direction of history.