The American Dream in the Great Depression. By Charles R. Hearn. Connecticut and London: Greenwood Press, 1977.

Resumo

Mr. Hearn examines 1) inspirational articles on success; 2) magazine biographies and other articles relating to the myth of success; 3) popular magazine (formula) fiction; and 4) the "serious" fiction of the 1920s and 30s to determine the ways in which the depression changed the American myth of the self-made man's social mobility as portrayed in literature. The inspirational success articles in the 1920s presented America as a prosperous utopia with unfettered economic growth within everyone's reach. Many articles of this type continued to be published during the depression, but articles on the cult of personality (as opposed to character) and success in non-commercial areas became more numerous. The new genre of how-to-succeed guidebooks provided evidence of a new "outer-directed" personality rather than the inner-directedness of the powerful business magnate.