Great Society

English

Proper noun

Great Society

1. (historical, US politics) A series of programs launched by President Lyndon B. Johnson to eliminate poverty in the United States.
   • 1947 March 12, Lyndon B Johnson, Remarks in Athens at Ohio University‎^[1], The American Presidency Project:

     [W]ith […] your desire, we will build the Great Society. It is a Society where no child will go unfed [or] unschooled. Where no man who wants work will fail to find it. Where no citizen will be barred from any door because of his birthplace or his color or his church. Where peace and security is common among neighbors and […] nations.

   • 1971, Lyndon Johnson, “The 1964 Campaign”, in The Vantage Point‎^[2], Holt, Reinhart & Winston, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 104:

     We built the campaign strategy around a progressive program, the program that formed the framework of the Great Society. The Great Society was never, in my mind, just a visionary Utopian ideal. I considered it a realistic outline of what this nation could achieve in a limited period of time if we marshaled our will and committed our resources.

   • 1992, Richard Nixon, “The Renewal of America”, in Seize the Moment‎^[3], Simon & Schuster, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 292:

     […] The Great Society was given a blank check. It bounced. While some of the poor advanced over the last twenty-five years, most who did so succeeded the old-fashioned way—by their own efforts. Most inner-city poor are worse off today than they were before President Johnson launched the Great Society.

   • 2022, Gary Gerstle, chapter 2, in The Rise and Fall of the Neoliberal Order […] , New York: Oxford University Press, →ISBN, Part I. The New Deal Order, 1930–1980:

     This required a legislative program, the Great Society, that would complete the New Deal and earn LBJ a place alongside FDR in the pantheon of heroic Democratic reformers.

Translations

series of domestic programs

See also

• big society

Further reading

• “Great Society”, in Collins English Dictionary.
• “Great Society”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
• “Great Society” in TheFreeDictionary.com, Huntingdon Valley, Pa.: Farlex, Inc., 2003–2024.