Ep 5 - The American Dream: Success Stories, Horatio Alger & a Nation of ‘Hustlers’

<p>Tracing the story of <em><strong>The American Dream: Success Stories, Horatio Alger and a Nation of ‘Hustlers</strong></em>, Episode 5 of <em><strong>The American Tapestry Project </strong></em>analyzes the tension between two stories: our Jeffersonian sense of ourselves as yeoman farmers living in small towns versus the reality that we live in Alexander Hamilton’s world of high finance, manufacturing and entrepreneurial zeal.<br> <br> In addition to such famous success stories as John D. Rockefeller and Jeff Bezos, we’ll also encounter African-American entrepreneurs Annie Malone and Pennsylvanian Stephen Smith. We’ll examine the American-created self-improvement industry beginning with Benjamin Franklin proceeding through Dale Carnegie to Joel Osteen and the success-gospel.<br> <br> If Americans <em><strong>hustle</strong></em>, in the sense of work hard, which they do, some are also <em><strong>“hustlers”</strong></em> who know how to cut a corner. We’ll meet P.T. Barnum and Tom Thumb, William Thompson – the original Confidence-Man who gave us the expression “Con-Man” – and we’ll ask “Why is <em><strong>The Godfather</strong></em> so enduringly popular? It’s all here in Episode 5: The <strong>American Dream: Success Stories, Horatio Alger and a Nation of ‘Hustlers’.</strong></p>