# Origin of "American Dream"?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-american-dream/37570>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [October 19, 2000, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-american-dream/37570 "2000-10-19T19:21:02Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![drusefton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f05b48/32.png) [@drusefton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drusefton)\
**Post date:** [October 19, 2000, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-american-dream/37570/1 "2000-10-19T19:21:02Z")

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Totally stumped on this one. Any help appreciated. Where the hell did that phrase originate? Much obliged.

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**Author:** ![omni-not](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/8dc957/32.png) [@omni-not](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/omni-not)\
**Post date:** [October 19, 2000, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-american-dream/37570/2 "2000-10-19T19:50:29Z")

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I didn’t find the source of the expression. However, William Safire, in his _Political Dictonary_, quotes the following:

> [@](#):
>
> In 1960, the poet Archibald MacLeish, debating “national purpose,” said: “There are those, I know, who will reply that the liberation of humanity, the freedom of man and mind, is nothing but a dream. They are right. It is. It is the American dream.”

P.S.: Welcome aboard!

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**Author:** ![funneefarmer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/9fc348/32.png) [@funneefarmer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/funneefarmer)\
**Post date:** [October 19, 2000, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-american-dream/37570/3 "2000-10-19T21:25:31Z")

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According to [this essay](http://www.altmuehlnet.de/~carlica/bill/bdream.html) “The earliest usage of the phrase occurs only in 1931 in an article written by James Truslow Adams, the ‘Historian of the American Dream’, for Catholic World”

He cites the following source for this information…  
Morey-Gaines, Ann-Janine: “Apples and Ashes”; Los Angeles: Scholars Press, 1982, p.2

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**Author:** ![drusefton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f05b48/32.png) [@drusefton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drusefton)\
**Post date:** [October 20, 2000, 1:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-american-dream/37570/4 "2000-10-20T13:27:00Z")

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thnx so much for info! you guys are great… quite impressed with how quickly you found the answer also… thnx again…