ABSTRACT
The "American dream" is a term so widely used as to obscure its intellectual background as the chief metaphor for the virtues of American life today. The generational differences in the class and status structure of Muncie between the first and second studies highlighted the importance of the American dream to understanding stratification in America. The opportunity for social mobility for everyone is the very fabric of the 'American dream'. Outside academia the American dream took on a different and far more normative meaning, especially in the area of civil rights. Adams brilliantly shows that the American class system had its beginning in pragmatic social solutions to the early frontier environment. The supremely middle-class value placed on hard work was not the only identifiable aspect of the early development of the American dream. The chapter introduces the place of slavery in the colonial economy.
