The notion of leisure has never been a fixed and ready concept. Nor has leisure ever contained a specific and finite range of events, facilities, resources or individual affects and perceptions. The explosive development of the United States in its short history has been dependent upon a vast and capillary system of social control. This system is based on a set of complimentary myths work and leisure. This pair of myths has defined the American social construction of reality from the outset. The power of leisure is in its flexibility to be revised and redefined continually to meet social and economic conditions and the motives of policy makers. In this paper, the historical development of the social construction of the United States is described by a discursive analysis of fouruniquely American myths. This discursive analysis proceeds from a definition of leisure as a social construction based on various myths that describe the social and economic conditions of various historical periods. From this thesis, myth the metalanguage of culture is employed to describe the social construction of leisure, as we know it today. These myths include the Puritan Work Ethic Myth, the Rugged Individual Myth, The Ideology of Consumerism Myth and the Leisure Myth as it appears today. These myths illustrate how leisure is an ever-expanding mechanism through which policy decisions are deployed. New myths will appear in the future as the social and economic conditions of the United States continue to develop. The story of Leisure will change with it.