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Who first coined the term "American Dream"?
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American Dream
Detail of the Statue of Liberty, copper and steel sculpture designed by Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi, dedicated in 1886; on Liberty Island, Upper New York Bay.
The term "American Dream" was coined by American businessman and historian James Truslow Adams in his 1931 book, The Epic of America. Adams defined the American Dream not merely as a pursuit of material wealth, but as a "dream of a social order in which each man and each woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable". This ideal emphasizes opportunity, upward mobility, freedom, and equality for all individuals in the United States, rooted in the aspirations of early European settlers.1