WHO PURSUE THE AMERICAN DREAM

Everyone can pursue their dream, is the most direct connotation of Locke's "in the beginning ..." But the idea extends beyond the image of a pristine state of nature waiting for whoever "discovers" it. Even in the distinctly non-pristine, non-natural world of Harlem or Harlan County, anyone can pursue a dream. A century ago, one moved to the frontier to hide a spotted past and begin afresh: Montana Frontierswomen "never asked women where they come from or what they did before they came to live in our neck of the woods. If they wore a wedding bad and were good wives, mother and neighbors that was enough for us to know." Today one finds new frontiers, as Gary Trudeau demonstrates.