What it made me think of was Horatio Alger. It seems to me that the popular idea of Alger is precisely the American Dream as you've described it. But I read several of his novels (and read about numerous others), and without exception they are the American Fantasy: the poor kid works and is virtuous (maybe that last is not part of the Fantasy) and then, because he befriends an old man or does some other good deed, boom! he wins the lottery or gets an enormous inheritance.
(no subject)