Outriders: Rodeo at the Fringes of the American West by Rebecca Scofield (review)

Rebecca Scofield, assistant professor of American history at the University of Idaho, has written an engaging, insightful, wonderfully researched social and cultural study of forgotten or ignored participants in United States rodeo. This short study deftly combines a solid base of foundational historiography, archival and institutional documents, and gender and cultural theory, all reflecting well on the Idaho-born author's training at Willamette and Harvard University.

Four topical chapters each focus on a different group of rodeo "outriders." Scofield examines female bronc riders, convict cowboys, all-Black western performers, and gay rodeoers to illustrate how "people who were cast out of popular western mythology and often marginalized from mainstream American life found belonging and meaning at the rodeo, demanding their right to grapple with the symbol of the cowboy in their own lives" (3).

Several chapters include mini–case studies that add detail and continuity. Norwegian-born Anna Mathilda Winger, who emigrated to the US at age fourteen, became a rodeo star under the name Tillie Baldwin. For African American rodeo, the focus is on Boley, Oklahoma, and Oakland, California. The chapter on prison rodeo clearly shows that "the Texas Prison Rodeo staged the state's exploitative and violent labor system as the path to social redemption" (64). She well contextualizes gay rodeo with additional information on other gay subcultures, such as leathermen and bears.

At several points, Scofield challenges (successfully in my view) existing cultural assumptions. Her analysis shows how fringe groups, excluded from the mainstream myths of a white heterosexual male West, creatively embraced rodeo to push their way into history and society. "For many people, the love of stock, the thrill of competition, and the sacredness of camaraderie were foundational to their sense of self" (5). Scofield also highlights conflicts arising within each social group as they labored to claim their piece of western life and mythology.

This is a superb book that illuminates major issues of Great Plains and western history far beyond the rodeo arena. For example, the tension between serious, traditional rodeo events and camp events, such as steer decorating, goat dressing, and wild drag racing, mirrors larger issues in the gay community. Female riders faced the dilemma of remaining feminine while engaging in traditionally masculine contests. Readers interested in issues of gender, ethnicity, popular culture, and western mythology will all learn something of value in this excellent book, the author's first.