Beauty and the Beast: Human-Animal Relations as Revealed in Real Photo Postcards, 1905–1935

11. Sports

212 Circuses and zoos were not the only early-twentieth -century venues where people exhibited animals and made them perform for viewers. Certain sporting events did so too, albeit with a competitive twist.1 Some sports pitted animals against one another, such as dogor cockfighting. Others pitted humans against animals, as happened in bullfights. Finally, some sports involved humans cooperating with animals, forming teams to compete against one another such as dogsled racing 1. Not everyone viewed these events the same way. With rodeo, for example, participants considered it to be a sporting event, but urban spectators likely saw it as a display. Today, many people concerned with humane treatment of animals see it as abuse rather than sport. (McFadden 2007). Whatever form they took, there were winners and losers. We focus on the rodeo in this chapter. Rodeos are gatherings in which humans both teamed with animals (horses in races, trick riding, and other competitions) and competed against them (bronc busting, steer wrestling , and calf roping) to the delight of spectators.2 In addition to rodeos, we briefly look at horse track and dogsled racing, along with the more controversial blood sports of dog- and cockfighting. During the first third of the twentieth century, the rodeo was immensely popular, becoming an American 2. Although bronco is the given term in standard dictionaries (a wild or semiwild horse), bronc is favored among rodeo participants. 11 Sports 11.1. Roy Hunter, bulldogging champion, Pendleton, Oregon, ca. 1911. Photo by Electric Studio. Susan Nichols Coll. Sports   |   213 sport of national importance.3 Enthusiasm for rodeo extended beyond western states to major cities in the Midwest and East. As cowboys and cowgirls competed with each other in large stadiums, upwards of seventy thousand fans per show paid to cheer and watch their heroics. When the rodeo came to New York City in 1922, Madison Square Garden turned away thousands . Billboard proclaimed, “New York is rodeo mad” (LeCompte 1993, 83). Rodeo cowboys and cowgirls were national celebrities . Newspapers carried reports describing their feats. Certain animals achieved notoriety for their skills and partnership with rodeo participants or for their unwillingness to fold under the power of the humans who tried to conquer them. Adults and children had favorite rodeo stars and collected rodeo photo postcards much like baseball fans today seek cards of their favorite players . Both humans and animals were pictured. Owning a real photo postcard of the champion bulldogger Roy Hunter and the steer he upended in record time would have delighted any rodeo fan (illustration 11.1). Images like this one did not just capture the drama of man versus beast; they also depicted the qualities of legendary range cowboys—toughness, courage, hard work, strength, rugged individualism, competitive spirit, and pride—with a dose of showmanship thrown in. Making this connection to America’s frontier past was no accident, given how rodeo started. The Development of the Rodeo The American rodeo evolved into a sport and folk festival whose development reflected the history of the West (M. Allen 1998). Since the rodeo emerged from ranching and the cattle industry, some events were actual activities range cowboys engaged in during horse and cattle roundups and on cattle drives (Porter 1971; also see chapter 2). Activities that made up the mainstay of rodeos were proficiencies that a good cowhand had to have. Other rodeo events embellished cowboy tasks or 3. Other countries such as Canada and Australia had rodeos. American and Canadian cowboys and cowgirls regularly participated in each other’s competitions. were invented to add glamour and excitement to the enterprise. On regular roundup and cattle drives, some of the work that cowboys did evolved into competitive sport. Who had the most control over their horse, who was the fastest rider, and who was the best roper or bronc rider were tested by staging contests. At first these “Sunday rodeos” were informal and free. But as more and more people gathered, ranchers began collecting modest admission fees. Cowboy Roy Robbins rides his bronc at one such ranch-based, small-scale rodeo in illustration 11.2. Although the rodeo emerged from the real experiences of working cowboys, its development is linked to the Wild West show. As rodeo organizers aggressively sought to attract more customers, they copied many aspects of these shows (LeCompte 1990). Wild West shows were elaborate amusement businesses resembling circuses in the range of colorful entertainment they offered (Reddin 1999). Some even had midways. Like circuses, they varied in size from...