The American Dream as Depicted in “On Her Own Ground” and “The Fist that Ate the Whale”
Introduction
This essay will feature two extraordinary biographies, A’Lelia Bundles’ “On Her Own Ground” and Rich Cohen’s “The Fish that Ate the Whale.” Bundles’ book is named New York Bestseller in 2001 and received several prestigious awards. As a direct descendent to Madam C. J. Walker, she was compelled to share the legacy and struggles of her ancestor to the world. The facts presented in the book are the work of an extensive two decades research. This comprehensive biography recounts one the life story of one of the most impressive African American women who rose from being the daughter of a former slave to the owner of a multimillion …show more content…
And when President Trump claimed in his speech on January, “The American Dream is back,” people began to curiously look back to the history of the notion. Jim Cullen writes, “This faith in reform (Protestant reformation from the Roman Catholic) became the central legacy of American Protestantism and the cornerstone of what became the American Dream,” (15) that a change was visible. However, the notion of an American Dreams was what later concluded by Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence, people are “endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” (Joseph M. Bessette, John J. Pitney, 560)
A shift in the American Dream occurred in 1931 as the term was popularized by James Truslow Adams in 1931, however he did not refer to the Declaration of Independence, but to “That dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for every man, with opportunity for each according to his ability or achievement.”( Lewyn, 2008) The later meaning of American Dream highlights more to the quality of a person’s life, psychologically and financially, while the first had been to preserve the more basic rights, such as the right to
Introduction
This essay will feature two extraordinary biographies, A’Lelia Bundles’ “On Her Own Ground” and Rich Cohen’s “The Fish that Ate the Whale.” Bundles’ book is named New York Bestseller in 2001 and received several prestigious awards. As a direct descendent to Madam C. J. Walker, she was compelled to share the legacy and struggles of her ancestor to the world. The facts presented in the book are the work of an extensive two decades research. This comprehensive biography recounts one the life story of one of the most impressive African American women who rose from being the daughter of a former slave to the owner of a multimillion …show more content…
And when President Trump claimed in his speech on January, “The American Dream is back,” people began to curiously look back to the history of the notion. Jim Cullen writes, “This faith in reform (Protestant reformation from the Roman Catholic) became the central legacy of American Protestantism and the cornerstone of what became the American Dream,” (15) that a change was visible. However, the notion of an American Dreams was what later concluded by Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence, people are “endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” (Joseph M. Bessette, John J. Pitney, 560)
A shift in the American Dream occurred in 1931 as the term was popularized by James Truslow Adams in 1931, however he did not refer to the Declaration of Independence, but to “That dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for every man, with opportunity for each according to his ability or achievement.”( Lewyn, 2008) The later meaning of American Dream highlights more to the quality of a person’s life, psychologically and financially, while the first had been to preserve the more basic rights, such as the right to