Get Rich Quick

Published: April 27, 2020, 7:05 a.m.

b'The search for untold riches has always been at the heart of America, from its very beginning as a nation founded on the search for gold. For this episode, we\\u2019ll look at several manifestations of this hope to \\u201cget rich quick\\u201d and the psychology of luck and ritual, of dreams themselves, both dreams of the future, and dreams that predict it. We\\u2019ll start with the most modern get rich quick ideas in the style of The Secret, the 2006 self-help book that make Americans believe that all you need to do to become wealthy is to manifest it with your thoughts, and that the poor are poor because they are attracting poverty to themselves. Then we\\u2019ll look at the way that the colonies were funded by early lotteries, the strange rituals of treasure hunting, and the way the gold rush changed American psychology. We\\u2019ll look too at the stories happening in the background, the far more modest dreams of black enslaved and oppressed people, who had their own rituals and had their own dreams to get rich quick in a different sense, buying their freedom through winning the lottery and finding economic stability through the underground Harlem lottery known as the numbers game. We\\u2019ll ask the question of just who can get rich quick and ask if hope is the greatest American hysteria of them all.\\n\\nPlease consider donating to Friends of Public School Harlem.\\n\\nVoice acting by Tamika Lawrence, check out her music here\\nAmerican Hysteria is written, produced, and hosted by Chelsey Weber-Smith\\nProduced and edited by Clear Commo Studios\\nResearch and cowriting assisted by Riley Smith\\nCo-Produced by Miranda Zickler\\nShow art by Roache\\nVoice Acting by Will Rogers\\n\\nBecome a Patron for extra episodes, interviews, and videos monthly!\\nFollow American Hysteria on social media:\\nTwitter: @AmerHysteria\\nInstagram: @AmericanHysteriaPodcast\\nLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices'