Rodeo Queens: On The Circuit With America's Cowgirls - Softcover

Burbick, Joan

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1586482041 ISBN 13: 9781586482046

Publisher: PublicAffairs, 2004

Synopsis

Rodeo has always been considered a supremely masculine sport, a rough and tumble display of macho strength and skill. But author Joan Burbick shows us the other side of rodeo: the world of rodeo queens- part cowgirl and part pageant princess- who wave and smile and keep the dream of the ideal Western woman alive. So who are the women behind the candy-red chaps, Farrah Fawcett curls, and rhinestone tiaras? Burbick traveled the backroads of the rural West for years, trying to find out. She interviewed dozens of queens, including rodeo royalty from the 1930s and 40s, women who grew up breaking wild horses, branding calves, and witnessing the sad decline of the ranching life. Stories from white and Native American rodeo queens in the 1950s and 1960s, the golden age of rodeo, reveal the conflicts over gender and race that shaped the rodeo and the Cold War politics of small Western towns. Finally, rodeo queens from the 1970s to the present describe a more fiercely commercial rodeo, driven largely by TV-ratings and sponsorships, glitter and hairspray. Illustrated throughout with wonderful photographs, this rich tapestry of women's voices echoes and challenges our clichés of the rural West. Their combined stories of fulfilled dreams and lost hopes reveal the tenacity of the myth of the American West, a place of muscled men, golden-haired women, relentless beauty and tragic limits.

About this title

Synopsis

This "delectable slice of Americana" ( ) explores "the glitter and the glamour of the rodeo subculture and, at the same time, some of its deepest contradictions." ( is a bittersweet journey into the lives of women who have worked the rodeo circuit in the rural West from the 1930s to the present. For over eight years, Joan Burbick traveled the backroads of the West, searching for "rodeo queens," the women who promote and perform in the elaborate pageantry of the rodeo. She interviewed dozens of queens in their living rooms, kitchens, barns, and ranches. She followed current queens down the rodeo road from tiny Western towns to the show- biz glitter of Las Vegas. Through their stories we witness dramatic changes in the rodeo, including the decline of skilled horse handling, the fierce conflicts over gender and race, and the intense commercialization of the rodeo. Combined with Burbick's wonderful collection of rodeo queen photographs, this rich tapestry of women's voices echoes and challenges our clichs of the rural West. Their stories of fulfilled dreams and lost hopesreveal the tenacity of the myth of the American West, a place of muscled men, golden-haired women, relentless beauty

About the Author

Joan Burbick teaches American Studies at Washington State University. Born in Chicago, she has lived in the Palouse region of northern Idaho and eastern Washington for the last twenty years, writing, raising a family, and, in her free time, working with horses.

About this edition

• Publisher: PublicAffairs
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 1586482041
• ISBN 13: 9781586482046
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 264