intellectual play American Dream examined whether American society truly
embodied this dream. Later, in 1960, another intellectual play by Edward Albee,
similarly titled The American Dream, was more critical of consumerism. The
phrase American Dream cropped up repeatedly in honest discussions about
America. Some intellectuals who were critical of the popular notions of
economic success in the United States used the term ironically, but other
intellectuals thought it measured some real aspect of American character.
For example, civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., used the phrase in his
legendary “I Have a Dream” speech, which he delivered during the civil rights
march on Washington, DC, to a large crowd stretching between the Washington
Monument and the Lincoln Memorial. In that speech on August 28, 1963, he
looked confidently forward to a day when “this nation will rise up, live out the
true meaning of its creed: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men
are created equal.”
Congress made King’s birthday a US national holiday in 1983. When
President Ronald Reagan signed the Act of Congress into law, he referred to the
“I Have a Dream” speech. Later that year, King’s widow, Coretta Scott King,
said, “Help us to make Martin’s dream—the American Dream—a reality.”45 We
see how seemingly small and unpredictable moments in history—the publication
of Adams’s book and a single speech by King—can develop gradually into the
backbone of a powerful narrative that continues to grow by contagion for
decades afterward.
The celebrity aspect of narratives, so frequently discussed in these pages, is at
work in the American Dream narrative. Martin Luther King, Jr., an inspirational
figure who was assassinated as he fought for the American Dream, made for a
far better narrative, and he pushed aside James Truslow Adams in the American
collective consciousness, giving the American Dream narrative the human
interest it needed to achieve enormous contagion. In fact, Adams wasn’t enough
of a celebrity to have his name attached to the narrative. Less than one-tenth of
1% of ProQuest News & Newspapers hits for American Dream since King’s “I
Have a Dream” speech mention James Truslow Adams, but 3% mention Martin
Luther King, Jr.
Ultimately, the generally accepted narrative of the American Dream includes
a wish for prosperity for everyone, framing it in a way that makes it seem not
commercial or selfish. It turns upside down Thorstein Veblen’s idea of
conspicuous consumption undertaken solely to prove one’s superiority. As a

result, the American Dream became extremely useful in pitches for consumer
products that encourage potential purchasers to feel better about their purchases,
such as a new home or a second car. In fact, ProQuest News & Newspapers
shows that more than half the use of the phrase American Dream has occurred in
advertisements rather than articles.

The Mutating American Dream: Homeownership
In the 1930s and 1940s, most of the ads using the phrase American Dream
promoted intellectual products: books, plays, sermons. But as time wore on, and
as the epidemic strengthened, the phrase took on a different dimension. The
American Dream turned into owning a home, with the underlying sense that
owning a home implies patriotism and commitment to the community. While
advertisements have used the phrase less in recent decades, they continue the
presumption that the American Dream justifies generous expenditures on
homeownership. Over two-thirds of ProQuest News & Newspapers hits for
American Dream since 1931 also include the word house or home.
The American Dream has been used to justify government actions supporting
the housing bubble that eventually collapsed during the world financial crisis of
2007–9. In 2003, near the height of the bubble, Fannie Mae, the government-
sponsored mortgage giant, adopted the following slogan for its advertisements:
“As the American Dream Goes, So Do We.” That same year, the US Congress
passed, and President George W. Bush signed, the American Dream
Downpayment Assistance Act, which subsidized home down payments. Since
1973, 265 bills and resolutions introduced in the US Congress have included the
words “American Dream.”
President George W. Bush heavily used the slogan “Ownership Society”
during his 2004 reelection campaign. The slogan was a variation on the
American Dream theme; Bush was calling attention to a society that respects
ownership and in which people “take ownership”—that is, take responsibility for
themselves. He said in 2002, “Right here in America if you own your own home,
you’re realizing the American Dream.” He spoke of the good feelings
homeownership lent: “All you’ve got to do is shake their hand and listen to their
stories and watch the pride that they exhibit when they show you the kitchen and
the stairs.”46
Controlled experiments have shown that marketing of consumer products
may be enhanced by appeals to patriotism.47 By attaching the term American
Dream to moral rectitude and to patriotism, this narrative epidemic probably
raised the homeownership rate in the United States, as well as stimulating
business in general.
The results have been both positive and negative. On the one hand, the