ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to reveal the political labor involved in the great representations of the West, particularly in the way they rendered it knowable to the patrons of the Eastern states whose money underwrote the colonization. A contemporary account of 'The Grayson Family' placed it within the same discursive frame. The aesthetic discourse of the painting itself circulates in the same parlors and salons as does the family's fashionable dress and represents a similar civilizing process. The image of California as a sleeping beauty awaiting Prince Capitalism to awaken her adds an economic dimension to the ageism and racism of the 'virgin territory' metaphor. The cultural public sphere is where piper payers such as Ted Stevens can best influence the music, and this public sphere has no more room for the voices and rights of the homeless than of racial diversity.
