# American Dream

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-dream/213991>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [November 18, 2003, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-dream/213991 "2003-11-18T22:55:48Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![myles](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/779978/32.png) [@myles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/myles)\
**Post date:** [November 18, 2003, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-dream/213991/1 "2003-11-18T22:55:48Z")

</div>

What is the American Dream?

Who first created the phrase “American Dream”? And when did they do this?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Beadalin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/3be4f8/32.png) [@Beadalin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beadalin)\
**Post date:** [November 18, 2003, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-dream/213991/2 "2003-11-18T23:10:25Z")

</div>

The American Dream is, essentially, to achieve your goals no matter what your background. The idea is that you don’t have to be born into wealth to achieve greatness in any field – as long as you’ve got determination and a willingness to work hard, you’ll get what you want. That’s the idea, anyway; of course it’s up for argument whether or not it’s true that “you can do anything you put your mind to.”

As for who coined the phrase, I really don’t know, so I’ll leave that to some other wise Doper.