The term American dream was coined in 1931, in the middle of the Great Depression, but the idea is as old as the Republic. John Winthrop saw America as a "city upon a hill" even before he laid eyes on it. From the beginning, America was as much an idea as a place, and that idea was informed by the notion that America was the land of self-betterment where the only sin, Emerson said, was limitation.
This is our 11th annual Making of America issue, and Jon Meacham's insightful cover story is not only a history of the idea of the...
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