In 1971, 18-year-old Michael Martin, a University of Kentucky student and the first person in his family to attend college, began wondering what the “American dream” was and how he himself had made it to university. To conduct research—and to spend more time talking with a girl from his sociology class—he decided to write to 50 prominent people, including musicians, writers, politicians, activists and heroes, and ask them to explain what the concept meant.
The responses became a unique archive. Martin heard from Joan Baez, Walter Cronkite, astronaut John Glenn, science-fiction writer Isaac Asimov, Peanuts creator Charles Schulz, activist Stokely Carmichael, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, George McGovern, Gloria Steinem, Ronald Reagan, Alfred Hitchcock, Johnny Carson and other well-known figures. His correspondents also included British writers J.R.R. Tolkien and Arthur C. Clarke.
The letters showed how differently people understood the American dream. Baez called it a nightmare, focusing on violence committed by the state and in its name. Glenn spoke of freedom and equality, while noting that those very principles remained major sources of anxiety. For Americans in the 1970s, he was an especially important figure: In 1962, Glenn became the first American to orbit Earth, symbolizing courage, technological progress and U.S. success in the space rivalry with the Soviet Union. His flight was associated with the image of an open future, freedom of exploration and the nation’s belief in its own potential.
Schulz connected the dream with the ability to live wherever one chooses, have enough food and cross borders freely—privileges many people take for granted.
Carmichael, a leader of the Black civil rights movement who was living in Guinea after being targeted by U.S. authorities, offered one of the sharpest responses. In his view, the American dream did exist, but it reflected a capitalist and racist system, including greed, individualism and conflicts between classes and races.
Against this backdrop, Hoover’s response about a fair and benevolent society appears particularly hypocritical. Hoover, who led the FBI and was involved in the campaign against Carmichael, was once regarded by many as an influential defender of national security and the head of a professional law-enforcement agency. Later, however, the FBI’s extensive surveillance and campaigns to discredit civil rights activists, including Martin Luther King Jr., came to light. As a result, his legacy is viewed ambivalently today: Alongside his fight against crime, he is blamed for political persecution and violations of civil liberties.
Decades later, Martin observed that the letter writers had said very little about money. For them, the dream was primarily about ideals and whether society was capable of bringing them to life. Today, it is more often associated with wealth—or, conversely, with the impossibility of achieving success: Some promise that America continues to create millionaires, while others believe that the formula “work hard and you’ll succeed” no longer works for younger generations.
Martin donated his archive to the University of Washington to preserve it for researchers and make it available to the general public. The University of Washington is the region’s largest research university and an important cultural center in Seattle. It supports libraries, museums and academic projects and plays an active role in the city’s public life.
Martin himself earned five college degrees, taught dentistry and epidemiology at the University of Washington, and raised a family. Yet his archive serves as a reminder that the American dream is not an achieved goal but a continuing pursuit of freedom, equality and a better life. As John Glenn wrote, even for a man who became the first American in orbit, it remains a dream.
Based on: This Seattle man has an archive of the American dream