The phrase the American Dream conjures images of prosperity, upward mobility, and the promise that hard work will be rewarded. But the physical reality of pursuing that dream has always extracted a brutal toll on human bodies. From the earliest factory workers whose lungs filled with cotton dust to the modern gig economy drivers destroying their backs in delivery vans, the American Dream has consistently demanded physical sacrifice from the very people who build it. This episode examines the bodily cost of economic ambition across American history. The Industrial Revolution brought unprecedented prosperity to the nation but shattered the bodies of the workers who powered it. Textile mill workers, many of them children, developed brown lung disease from inhaling cotton fibers. Steel workers suffered catastrophic burns and crushing injuries at rates  ...