Great Society

proper noun

A series of programs launched by President Lyndon B. Johnson to eliminate poverty in the United States.

Meanings

proper noun
  1. UShistoricalgovernmentA series of programs launched by President Lyndon B. Johnson to eliminate poverty in the United States.

    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.

    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
    3 more examples

    [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.

    1964 March 12, Lyndon B Johnson, Remarks in Athens at Ohio University, The American Presidency Project

    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.

    1971, Lyndon Johnson, “The 1964 Campaign”, in The Vantage Point, Holt, Reinhart & Winston, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 104

    […] 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.

    1992, Richard Nixon, “The Renewal of America”, in Seize the Moment, Simon & Schuster, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 292

Translations

Polish Wielkie Społeczeństwo
  • Wielkie Społeczeństwoseries of domestic programs
Cite this entry
APA

Great Society. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 5, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Great%20Society

MLA

“Great Society.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Great%20Society. Accessed November 5, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “Great Society,” accessed November 5, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Great%20Society.

Source: Great Society on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.