ABSTRACT
Middle-class parents in Britain and the United States, in the mid-19th century, began to establish the custom of regular celebrations of children’s birthdays – for several reasons, but primarily because they sought a new way to provide happiness. Communist governments, in the 20th century, worked very hard to promote ideas about happiness that would differ both from religious and from dominant Western concepts, and the process proved quite challenging. The history of happiness covers many different regions of the world and several distinct periods of time. It involves a mix of formal ideas and more diffuse popular assumptions. A variant on this argument, also heavily dependent on psychology, admits that there are lots of gradations in happiness but insists that they are mostly the function of individual personalities. American culture is primed for cheerfulness, and although levels have slipped a bit in recent years the ability to convey “positivity” is a deeply ingrained response.
