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Author Scofield, Rebecca, author.

Title Outriders : rodeo at the fringes of the American West / Rebecca Scofield
Published Seattle : University of Washington Press, [2019]

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Description 1 online resource (x, 252 pages)
Contents Introduction: Rodeo and the outriders of history -- Coiffeuse to cowgirl : pioneering and performance of Western womanhood -- Restorative brutality : violence and social salvation at the Texas Prison Rodeo -- History unedited : black rodeo, progress, and the performance of heritage -- Camp and the cowboy : the serious fun of gay rodeo -- Conclusion: Performance and embodied epistemologies
Summary "This book examines how (and why) rodeo has provided diverse communities ways in which they can prove themselves as real Americans, real men, and real heroes, often through the enactment of ever-shifting concepts like authenticity, tradition, and heritage. The author analyzes how the space of the rodeo arena has exposed fractures in the narrative of the cowboy over the twentieth century, focusing particularly on the experiences of non-normative cowboys and cowgirls to demonstrate how people stripped of their place in a collectively imagined Western past have both challenged and reinforced the cowboy as an icon of American authenticity. The case studies include female bronc-riders in the 1910s and 1920s, convict cowboys in the mid-twentieth century, all-black rodeos in the 1960s and 1970s, and gay rodeoers in the late century. Cast out of popular Western mythology and pushed to the fringes in everyday life, these people found belonging and meaning at the rodeo, staking a claim to national inclusion through regional performance. Yet, alongside their challenges to the restrictive definition of the cowboy, they also contributed to the persistent idea of an authentic Western identity"-- Provided by publisher
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index
Notes Online resource; title from digital title page (viewed on October 16, 2019)
Subject Rodeos -- Social aspects -- West (U.S.) -- History -- 20th century
Rodeo performers -- West (U.S.) -- History -- 20th century
Cowboys -- West (U.S.) -- History -- 20th century
Cowgirls -- West (U.S.) -- History -- 20th century
Minorities -- West (U.S.) -- History -- 20th century
HISTORY -- United States -- State & Local -- West (AK, CA, CO, HI, ID, MT, NV, UT, WY)
Cowboys
Cowgirls
Minorities
Rodeo performers
Rodeos -- Social aspects
Social conditions
SUBJECT West (U.S.) -- Social conditions -- 20th century
Subject West United States
Genre/Form History
Form Electronic book
LC no. 2019011459
ISBN 9780295746050
029574605X