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American ideals

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Many American authors added American ideals to their work as a theme or other reoccurring idea, to get their point across.[40] There are many ideals that appear in American literature such as that all people are equal, the United States is the land of opportunity, independence is valued, the American Dream is attainable, and everyone can succeed with hard work and determination. John Winthrop also wrote about this term called American exceptionalism. This ideology refers to the idea that Americans are, as a nation, elect.[41]

 

 

 

 

Literary commentary

The American Dream has been credited with helping to build a cohesive American experience, but has also been blamed for inflated expectations.[43] Some commentators have noted that despite deep-seated belief in the egalitarian American Dream, the modern American wealth structure still perpetuates racial and class inequalities between generations.[44] One sociologist notes that advantage and disadvantage are not always connected to individual successes or failures, but often to prior position in a social group.[44]

Since the 1920s, numerous authors, such as Sinclair Lewis in his 1922 novel Babbitt, and F. Scott Fitzgerald, in his 1925 classic, The Great Gatsby, satirized or ridiculed materialism in the chase for the American dream. For example, Jay Gatsby’s death mirrors the American Dream’s demise, reflecting the pessimism of modern-day Americans.[45] The American Dream is a main theme in the book by John Steinbeck, Of Mice and Men. The two friends George and Lennie dream of their own piece of land with a ranch, so they can “live off the fatta the lan'” and just enjoy a better life. The book later shows that not everyone can achieve the American Dream, although it is possible to achieve for a few. A lot of people follow the American Dream to achieve a greater chance of becoming rich. Some posit that the ease of achieving the American Dream changes with technological advances, availability of infrastructure and information, government regulations, state of the economy, and with the evolving cultural values of American demographics.

In 1949, Arthur Miller wrote Death of a Salesman, in which the American Dream is a fruitless pursuit. Similarly, in 1971 Hunter S. Thompson depicted in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey Into the Heart of the American Dream a dark psychedelic reflection of the concept—successfully illustrated only in wasted pop-culture excess.[46]

The novel Requiem for a Dream by Hubert Selby Jr. is an exploration of the pursuit of American success as it turns delirious and lethal, told through the ensuing tailspin of its main characters. George Carlin famously wrote the joke “it’s called the American dream because you have to be asleep to believe it”.[47][48] Carlin pointed to “the big wealthy business interests that control things and make all the important decisions” as having a greater influence than an individual’s choice.[47] Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and leftist activist Chris Hedges echoes this sentiment in his 2012 book Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt:[49]

The vaunted American dream, the idea that life will get better, that progress is inevitable if we obey the rules and work hard, that material prosperity is assured, has been replaced by a hard and bitter truth. The American dream, we now know, is a lie. We will all be sacrificed. The virus of corporate abuse—the perverted belief that only corporate profit matters—has spread to outsource our jobs, cut the budgets of our schools, close our libraries, and plague our communities with foreclosures and unemployment.

The American Dream, and the sometimes dark response to it, has been a long-standing theme in American film.[50] Many counterculture films of the 1960s and 1970s ridiculed the traditional quest for the American Dream. For example, Easy Rider (1969), directed by Dennis Hopper, shows the characters making a pilgrimage in search of “the true America” in terms of the hippie movement, drug use, and communal lifestyles.[51]

Political leaders

Scholars have explored the American Dream theme in the careers of numerous political leaders, including Henry Kissinger,[52] Hillary Clinton,[53] Benjamin Franklin, and Abraham Lincoln.[54] The theme has been used for many local leaders as well, such as José Antonio Navarro, the Tejano leader (1795–1871), who served in the legislatures of Coahuila y Texas, the Republic of Texas, and the State of Texas.[55]

Political conflicts, to some degree, have been ameliorated by the shared values of all parties in the expectation that the American Dream will resolve many difficulties and conflicts.[59]

Public opinion

The ethos today implies an opportunity for Americans to achieve prosperity through hard work. According to the Dream, this includes the opportunity for one’s children to grow up and receive a good education and career without artificial barriers. It is the opportunity to make individual choices without the prior restrictions that limited people according to their class, caste, religion, race, or ethnicity. Immigrants to the United States sponsored ethnic newspapers in their own language; the editors typically promoted the American Dream.Lawrence Samuel argues:

For many in both the working class and the middle class, upward mobility has served as the heart and soul of the American Dream, the prospect of “betterment” and to “improve one’s lot” for oneself and one’s children much of what this country is all about. “Work hard, save a little, send the kids to college so they can do better than you did, and retire happily to a warmer climate” has been the script we have all been handed.

A key element of the American Dream is promoting opportunity for one’s children, Johnson interviewing parents says, “This was one of the most salient features of the interview data: parents—regardless of background—relied heavily on the American Dream to understand the possibilities for children, especially their own children”.[62] Rank et al. argue, “The hopes and optimism that Americans possess pertain not only to their own lives, but to their children’s lives as well. A fundamental aspect of the American Dream has always been the expectation that the next generation should do better than the previous generation.”[63]

Hanson and Zogby (2010) report on numerous public opinion polls that since the 1980s have explored the meaning of the concept for Americans, and their expectations for its future. In these polls, a majority of Americans consistently reported that for their family, the American Dream is more about spiritual happiness than material goods. Majorities state that working hard is the most important element for getting ahead. However, an increasing minority stated that hard work and determination does not guarantee success.[65]

In 2010, most Americans predicted that achieving the Dream with fair means would become increasingly difficult for future generations. They were increasingly pessimistic about the opportunity for the working class to get ahead; on the other hand, they were increasingly optimistic about the opportunities available to poor people and to new immigrants. Furthermore, most supported programs to make special efforts to help minorities get ahead.[65]

In a 2013 poll by YouGov, 41% of responders said it is impossible for most to achieve the American Dream, while 38% said it is still possible.[66] Most Americans perceive a college education as the ticket to the American Dream.[67] Some recent[when?] observers warn that soaring student loan debt crisis and shortages of good jobs may undermine this ticket.[68] The point was illustrated in The Fallen American Dream, a documentary film that details the concept of the American Dream from its historical origins to its current perception.[69] A 2020 poll found 54% of American adults thought the American Dream was attainable for them, 28% believed it was not, and 9% rejected the idea of the American Dream entirely. Younger generations were less likely to believe this than their older counterparts, and black and Asian Americans less likely than whites, Hispanics and Native Americans.[12]

Research published in 2013 shows that the U.S. provides, alongside the United Kingdom and Spain, the least economic mobility of any of 13 rich democratic countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).[71][72] Prior research suggested that the United States shows roughly average levels of occupational upward mobility and shows lower rates of income mobility than comparable societies.[73][74]

Jo Blanden et al. report, “the idea of the U.S. as ‘the land of opportunity’ persists; and clearly seems misplaced.”[76] According to these studies, “by international standards, the United States has an unusually low level of intergenerational mobility: our parents’ income is highly predictive of our incomes as adults. Intergenerational mobility in the United States is lower than in France, Germany, Sweden, Canada, Finland, Norway and Denmark. Research in 2006 found that among high-income countries for which comparable estimates are available, only the United Kingdom had a lower rate of mobility than the United States.”[77] Economist Isabel Sawhill concluded that “this challenges the notion of America as the land of opportunity”.[78][79][80]Several public figures and commentators, from David Frum to Richard G. Wilkinson, have said that the American Dream is better realized in Denmark, which is ranked as having the highest social mobility in the OECD.[81][82][83][84][85] In the U.S., 50% of a father’s income position is inherited by his son. In contrast, the amount in Norway or Canada is less than 20%. Moreover, in the U.S. 8% of children raised in the bottom 20% of the climbed to the top 20% as adult, while the figure in Denmark is nearly double at 15%.[86][87][88] In 2015, economist Joseph Stiglitz stated, “Maybe we should be calling the American Dream the Scandinavian Dream.”[89]A 2023 paper written by academics at Bocconi University, the Rockwool Foundation, and Stockholm University found that “Intergenerational poverty in the U.S. is four times stronger than in Denmark and Germany, and twice as strong as in Australia and the UK,” and that an American child who grows up in poverty has “a 43 percentage point higher mean poverty exposure during early adulthood (relative to an adult with no child poverty exposure),” the highest of the five countries and exceeding the next highest by over 20 percentage points. The researchers found that “the persistence of poverty is strongly connected to tax rates and what they call transfer insurance effects, which can be considered as akin to a social safety net,” and that the “U.S. is the archetype of a liberal and residualist welfare state, featuring stratified access to higher education and employment, strong earnings returns to higher education, and a comparatively weak welfare state to insure against risks in adulthood,” as well as that “exposure to childhood poverty is particularly severe in the US.”[90]

A 2017 study stated that the UK, Canada, and Denmark all offered a greater chance of social mobility.[91] Black families were stated to be disadvantaged relative to white families when it comes to both upward mobility from the bottom and downward mobility from the top according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, with social mobility nationwide appearing to have declined since 1980.[92] Social mobility can also vary widely geographically according to a 2014 paper, with the Southeast and lower East North Central states ranking near the bottom.[93]

In the United States, home ownership is sometimes used as a proxy for achieving the promised prosperity; home ownership has been a status symbol separating the middle classes from the poor.[94]

Sometimes the American Dream is identified with success in sports or how working class immigrants seek to join the American way of life.[95]

According to a 2020 American Journal of Political Science study, Americans become less likely to believe in the attainability of the American dream as income inequality increases.[96] A 2022 study in the same journal found that exposure to “rags-to-riches” narratives in entertainment make Americans more likely to believe in upward mobility.[6]

According to a 2023 private opinion survey of American people by a Boston-based organization, Populace, the American Dream has shifted its narrative from fame and wealth to personal factors such as secure retirement, financial independence, parenthood and finding fulfillment in their work.[97]

Four American Dreams

Ownby (1999) identifies four American Dreams that the new consumer culture of the early 20th century addressed:

  • The “Dream of Abundance”, offering a cornucopia of material goods to all Americans, making them proud to be the richest society on earth.
  • The “Dream of a Democracy of Goods”, whereby everyone had access to the same products regardless of race, gender, ethnicity, or class, thereby challenging the aristocratic norms of the rest of the world where only the rich or well-connected were granted access to luxury.
  • The “Dream of Freedom of Choice”, with its ever-expanding variety of good allowed people to fashion their own particular lifestyle.
  • The “Dream of Novelty”, in which ever-changing fashions, new models, and unexpected new products broadened the consumer experience in terms of purchasing skills and awareness of the market, and challenged the conservatism of traditional society, culture, and politics.Ownby acknowledges that the American Dreams of the new consumer culture radiated out from the major cities, but notes that they quickly penetrated the most rural and most isolated areas, such as rural Mississippi. With the arrival of affordable automobiles such as the Ford Model T in the 1910s, consumers in rural America were no longer forced to only buy from local general stores with their limited merchandise and high prices, and could instead visit cheaper, better-stocked shops in towns and cities. Ownby demonstrates that poor black Mississippians shared in the new consumer culture, and it motivated the more ambitious to move to Memphis or Chicago.[98][99]

Culture of the United States

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The culture of the United States encompasses various social behaviors, institutions, and norms, including forms of speech, literature, music, visual arts, performing arts, food, sports, religion, law, technology, as well as other customs, beliefs, and forms of knowledge. American culture has been shaped by the history of the United States, its geography, and various internal and external forces and migrations.[1]

America’s foundations were initially Western-based, and primarily English-influenced, but also with prominent French, German, Greek, Irish, Italian, Scottish, Welsh, Jewish, Polish, Scandinavian, and Spanish regional influences. However, non-Western influences, including African and Indigenous cultures, and more recently, Asian cultures, have firmly established themselves in the fabric of American culture as well. Since the United States was established in 1776, its culture has been influenced by successive waves of immigrants, and the resulting “melting pot” of cultures has been a distinguishing feature of its society. Americans pioneered or made great strides in musical genres such as heavy metal, rhythm and blues, jazz, gospel, country, hip hop, and rock ‘n’ roll. The “big four sports” are American football, baseball, basketball, and ice hockey. In terms of religion, the majority of Americans are Protestant or Catholic. The irreligious element is growing. American cuisine includes popular tastes such as hot dogs, milkshakes, and barbecue, as well as many other class and regional preferences. The most commonly used language is English, and English was made the official language of the United States on March 1, 2025, although the United States did not have an official language for most of its history.[2] Distinct cultural regions include New England, Mid-Atlantic, the South, Midwest, Southwest, Mountain West, and Pacific Northwest.[3]

Politically, the country takes its values from the American Revolution and American Enlightenment, with an emphasis on liberty, individualism, and limited government, as well as the Bill of Rights and Reconstruction Amendments. Under the First Amendment, the United States has the strongest protections of free speech of any country.[4][5][6][7] American popular opinion is also the most supportive of free expression and the right to use the Internet.[8][9] The large majority of the United States has a legal system that is based upon English common law.[10] According to the Inglehart–Welzel cultural map, it leans greatly towards “self-expression values“, while also uniquely blending aspects of “secular-rational” (with a strong emphasis on human rights, the individual, and anti-authoritarianism) and “traditional” (with high fertility rates, religiosity, and patriotism) values together.[11][12][13] Its culture can vary by factors such as region, race and ethnicity, age, religion, socio-economic status, or population density, among others. Different aspects of American culture can be thought of as low culture or high culture, or belonging to any of a variety of subcultures. The United States exerts major cultural influence on a global scale and is considered a cultural superpower.[14][15]

Languages

More than 300 languages nationwide, and up to 800 languages in New York City, besides English, have native speakers in the United States—some are spoken by indigenous peoples (about 150 living languages) and others imported by immigrants. English is not the first language of most immigrants in the US, though many do arrive knowing how to speak it, especially from countries where English is broadly used.[32] This not only includes immigrants from countries such as Canada, Jamaica, and the UK, where English is the primary language, but also countries where English is an official language, such as India, Nigeria, and the Philippines.[32]

According to the 2000 census, there were nearly 30 million native speakers of Spanish in the United States. Spanish has official status in the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, where it is the primary language spoken, and the state of New Mexico; numerous Spanish enclaves exist around the country as well.[33]

Customs and traditions

Iconic American dishes such as apple pie, donuts, fried chicken, American pizza, hamburgers, and hot dogs derive from the recipes of various immigrants and domestic innovations.[35][36] French fries, Mexican dishes such as burritos and tacos, and pasta dishes freely adapted from Italian sources are consumed.[37]

The types of food served at home vary greatly and depend upon the region of the country and the family’s own cultural heritage. Recent immigrants tend to eat food similar to that of their country of origin, and Americanized versions of these cultural foods, such as Chinese American cuisine or Italian American cuisine often eventually appear. Vietnamese cuisine, Korean cuisine, and Thai cuisine in authentic forms are often readily available in large cities. German cuisine has a profound impact on American cuisine, especially Midwestern cuisine; potatoes, noodles, roasts, stews, cakes, and other pastries are the most iconic ingredients in both cuisines.[38] Dishes such as the hamburger, pot roast, baked ham, and hot dogs are examples of American dishes derived from German cuisine.[39][40]

Americans generally prefer coffee over tea, and more than half the adult population drinks at least one cup of coffee per day.[41] Marketing by U.S. industries is largely responsible for making orange juice and milk (now often fat-reduced) ubiquitous breakfast beverages.[42] During the 1980s and 1990s, the caloric intake of Americans rose by 24%;[37] and frequent dining at fast food outlets is associated with what health officials call the American “obesity epidemic“. Highly sweetened soft drinks are popular; sugared beverages account for 9% of the average American’s daily caloric intake.[43]

The American fast food industry, the world’s first and largest, is also often viewed as being a symbol of U.S. marketing dominance. Companies such as McDonald’s,[44] Burger King, Pizza Hut, Kentucky Fried Chicken, and Domino’s Pizza among others, have numerous outlets around the world,[45] and pioneered the drive-through format in the 1940s.[46]

Sports

In the 1800s, colleges were encouraged to focus on intramural sports, particularly track and field, and, in the late 1800s, American football. Physical education was incorporated into primary school curriculums in the 20th century.[48]

Baseball is the oldest of the major American team sports. Professional baseball dates from 1869 and had no close rivals in popularity until the 1960s. Though baseball is no longer the most popular sport,[49] it is still referred to as “the national pastime“.

Ice hockey is the fourth-leading professional team sport. Always a mainstay of Great Lakes and New England-area culture, the sport gained tenuous footholds in regions like the American South since the early 1990s, as the National Hockey League pursued a policy of expansion.[50]

Soccer is very popular as a participation sport, particularly among youth, and the US national teams are competitive internationally. A twenty-six-team (with four more confirmed to be added within the next few years) professional league, Major League Soccer, plays from March to October, but its television audience and overall popularity lag behind other American professional sports.[51]

Soccer is very popular as a participation sport, particularly among youth, and the US national teams are competitive internationally. A twenty-six-team (with four more confirmed to be added within the next few years) professional league, Major League Soccer, plays from March to October, but its television audience and overall popularity lag behind other American professional sports.[51]

Namesv

Creativity has also long been a part of American naming traditions and names have been used to express personality, cultural identity, and values.[59][60] Naming trends vary by race, geographic area, and socioeconomic status. African Americans, for instance, have developed a very distinct naming culture.[60] Both religious names and those inspired by popular culture are common.[61]

Fashion and dress

Blue jeans were popularized as work clothes in the 1850s by merchant Levi Strauss, a German-Jewish immigrant in San Francisco, and adopted by many American teenagers a century later. They are worn in every state by people of all ages and social classes. Along with mass-marketed informal wear in general, blue jeans are arguably one of US culture’s primary contributions to global fashion.[62]

Marriage and divorce

State law provides for child support where children are involved, and sometimes for alimony. “Married adults now divorce two-and-a-half times as often as adults did 20 years ago and four times as often as they did 50 years ago… between 40% and 60% of new marriages will eventually end in divorce. The probability within… the first five years is 20%, and the probability of its ending within the first 10 years is 33%… Perhaps 25% of children (ages 16 and under) live with a stepparent.”[70]

History

Origins, development, and spread

The European roots of the United States originate with the English and Spanish settlers of colonial North America during British and Spanish rule. The varieties of English people, as opposed to the other peoples on the British Isles, were the overwhelming majority ethnic group in the 17th century (the population of the colonies in 1700 was 250,000) and were 47.9% of percent of the total population of 3.9 million. They constituted 60% of the whites at the first census in 1790 (%: 3.5 Welsh, 8.5 Scotch Irish, 4.3 Scots, 4.7 Irish, 7.2 German, 2.7 Dutch, 1.7 French, and 2 Swedish).[16] The English ethnic group contributed to the major cultural and social mindset and attitudes that evolved into the American character. Of the total population in each colony, they numbered from 30% in Pennsylvania to 85% in Massachusetts.[17] Large non-English immigrant populations from the 1720s to 1775, such as the Germans (100,000 or more), Scotch Irish (250,000), added enriched and modified the English cultural substrate.[18]

Jeffersonian democracy was a foundational American cultural innovation, which is still a core part of the country’s identity.[19] Thomas Jefferson’s Notes on the State of Virginia was perhaps the first influential domestic cultural critique by an American and was written in reaction to the views of some influential Europeans that America’s native flora and fauna (including humans) were degenerate.[19]

Non-indigenous cultural influences have been brought by historical immigration, especially from Germany in much of the country,[20] Ireland and Italy in the Northeast, and Japan in Hawaii. Latin American culture is especially pronounced in former Spanish areas but has also been introduced by immigration, as have Asian American cultures (especially in the Northeast and West Coast regions). Caribbean culture has been increasingly introduced by immigration and is pronounced in many urban areas. Since the abolition of slavery, the Caribbean has been the source of the earliest and largest Black immigrant group, a significant source of growth of the Black population in the U.S. and has made major cultural impacts in education, music, sports and entertainment.[21]

Indigenous cultures remains strong in both reservation and urban communities, including traditional government and communal organization of property now legally managed by Indian reservations (large reservations are mostly in the West, especially Oklahoma, Arizona and South Dakota). The fate of indigenous cultures after contact with Europeans is quite varied. For example, Taíno culture in U.S. Caribbean territories is undergoing cultural revitalization and, like many Native American languages, the Taíno language is no longer spoken. By contrast, the Hawaiian language and culture of the Native Hawaiians has survived in Hawaii alongside that of immigrants from the mainland U.S. (starting before the 1898 annexation) and to some degree Asian immigrants. Indigenous Hawaiian influences on mainstream American culture include surfing and Hawaiian shirts. Most languages native to what is now U.S. territory are endangered.[22]

American culture includes both conservative and liberal elements, scientific and religious competitiveness, political structures, risk taking and free expression, materialist and moral elements. Despite certain consistent ideological principles (e.g. individualism, egalitarianism, and faith in freedom and republicanism), American culture has a variety of expressions due to its geographical scale and demographics.[23]

As a melting pot of cultures and ethnicities, the U.S. has been shaped by the world’s largest immigrant population. The country is home to a wide variety of ethnic groups, traditions, and values,[24][25] and exerts major cultural influence on a global scale, with the phenomenon being termed Americanization.[26][27][14][15]