C (3:55)

I have not. I thought I wanted to as a young child, and my dad was a bull rider, so we all thought better of it.

B (4:03)

Excellent. There you go. So let's cover the basics. What is rodeo? By definition, a bunch of competitions, as far as I knew, with set rules and such.

C (4:12)

Right, Correct. Yeah. Today's rodeo is, in some cases an extreme sport, and it kind of brings part of ranching life in the Old west onto the stage for all of the fans today, which there are millions globally. Rodeo contests are split into two different categories. So we have timed events, and on. On those, the fastest time within the rules wins. Those are calf roping, steer wrestling or bulldogging. Also barrel racing and team roping and breakaway roping. Also, the judged events, which are judged in the Professional Rodeo Cowboys association, are judged by sanctioned judges. And those are the bucking events. So bulls, saddle Bronx and bareback bronc riding. And so those have scores of up to 100. They score the animal and the rider and out of a 0 to 25 for each judge. And so that's where they. They come up with whatever the score is.

B (5:24)

You grew up in Texas, and as you've already mentioned, lots of experience on the ranch, but you also did early. You rode rodeo, right?

C (5:32)

I grew up riding and helping work our cattle. We did not ride competitively when my sisters and I were young. Back then, it took a lot of money. Didn't have sponsors so much for rodeo. So we did competitively team pen, which is not officially a rodeo sport, although it certainly could be, because it has to do with cutting out cattle from a herd. And again, that's a timed event and it's one that the whole family can do. So we did do that for a bit.

B (6:01)

We'll talk a lot about it and certainly from my perspective, as the show and the spectacle of this. But it really has its roots in very hard won, as I've mentioned, skills of the ranch. Skills that are still used even in the modern day, although it's, of course, evolved in different ways. The early origins of the sport itself, you know, I always figured it was because a bunch of bored cowboys were between cattle drives and it was a way of showing off your stuff. But this ghost.

C (6:29)

Wh.

B (6:30)

Way before the American west, right?

C (6:32)

It does. Yes, indeed. When Spaniards actually brought cattle and horses into North America, they had an early form of what they called. It was a roundup. And the Spanish word for that was rodeo, which we have Americanized to rodeo. But there were some contests there. Kind of like you said, it started with one cowboy or vaquero at that time, vaquero challenging another to rope faster than other vaqueros.

B (7:07)

So we have this competition, which is more of a ranch to ranch kind of thing, I'm sure, back in the 1500s, moving through, of course, then we move ahead towards what becomes the Texas Revolution. All that time period in the early 1800s. That's when it really becomes an Americanized thing because, of course, we're moving out there. So let me understand. We. We have this very Spanish ritual, almost maybe competition between ranches, 1500s into the 1600s. Interesting. We did a show a long time ago about the arrival of horses in North America, which comes, you know, traditionally, we understand, as with the Spanish, indeed, our episode was about horses having been here a long time before, in prehistoric times. And then they came back with this madness. It's so fascinating, but so much of this has to do with the arrival of horses and the skills that are required to use the horses for this kind of work. It ramps up, of course, as this area becomes Mexican and then Americanized. And Certainly in the 1800s, the first Anglo American settlers move into Texas. And that's where all this starts to get a little more, I guess, formalized would be the word, right?

C (8:18)

Yes. And that really starts with roping contests, largely in the Texas and Oklahoma panhandle, where cowboys and vaqueros and anyone else that worked on the ranch as a cowhand. And as we know now, that was a much more diverse culture than what we have, you know, overall in the historical record. And so they would have these roping contests, but still no audience. So what we know Today really starts with an audience. And there are three main rodeos who claim. Their claim to fame is that they're the first rodeo. But historians do not necessarily agree with any of them. So Deer Trail, Colorado started in 1869. And so people would have come to watch the event, but they didn't sell tickets. And so some historians begin that history with the selling of tickets for audiences to come. Also North Platte, Nebraska, which kind of, it's 1882, kind of coincides with Buffalo Bill Cody's start to Wild west shows, which happens a year later. And then Pecos, Texas is the first one that really we have record of that charges admission and has people come in. That's also 1883. So they're all kind of right there at the same time. They overlap with Wild west shows. And while west shows will start to incorporate exhibition contests, so they'll have a bucking contest or maybe some recreation of a roundup. And that's kind of how they live parallel for a good while into the nineteen teens. And then the 101 Ranch in Wild west show from Oklahoma lasts until 1931.

B (10:17)

It's really. You said parallel. It really goes parallel with the development of the cattle industry also. I mean the, the whole commercialization of the west and comes first of course with the railroad, but then these cattle drives, moving so many cattle to these places like Kansas City and so forth, all of that is getting written about in the media. It's becoming quite a story. It becomes glamorized, romanticized. All of that which happens to the west is, is hyper focused on this kind of cowboy mythology that is expressed so much by these, by these rodeos. That's kind of where it all becomes the, the, the profit making show that it will become. But by the 1880s, the need for cowboys, as they were, has been replaced by fencing, which has really changed the open range so much. And that's also. So you've got all these guys with these great skills, but they have not so much need for them as they used to have.

C (11:07)

Right, Correct, correct.

B (11:10)

And so that gets channeled into this, into this very popular spectator sport, which is. It's just such an interesting 50 year period that happens against the backdrop of the American west and the development of that. You mentioned Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show, 1883. There's also the Chicago World's Fair, the Columbian Exhibition, which happens in 1893, which was such a huge event in the telling of the American story. Nevermind the world and rodeo happens at Chicago, doesn't it?

C (11:37)

It absolutely does. There's a transition there too though. So we go from roping contests to more organized rodeo that coincides with Wild west shows. And then we have rodeo troops for a bit. And rodeo troops travel. They sign contracts for all of the cowboys and cowgirls to travel with one rodeo producer. And so this really spreads that culture toward the end of the 19th century. And so they will travel all over the United States in those troops. As I said, they have contracts. So it's not necessarily a contest. Some of the cowgirls that rode with the rodeo troops would sign to ride X number of bucking horses within the week that they were going to be in one location. And so that's how the city really starts to notice and recognize Western women. So the Wild west shows and the rodeo troops that travel separately and then we kind of start to get to rodeo. But some of those early rodeos in Chicago, in Madison Square Garden and in Boston Garden, they drew between in the 1910s, around 10,000 members in the audience. By the 1920s, when we get to the golden age of rodeo, the audience numbers are as high as 25,000.

B (13:12)

Yes, it's really got a huge following. Why was it happening in the 20s, do you think?

C (13:17)

Well, it's a golden age of sport. And with the cultural changes in the 20s and the celebration of life, there's so much social change during the 1920s that I think people were really looking for kind of maybe an exotic entertainment. And that certainly provided that also the nostalgia for the West. I mean, in some ways, rodeos a living history of the frontier west to some people. So I think that has a lot to do with it.

B (13:51)

Yeah, exactly. By 1929, as I understand, the Rodeo association of America has been organized several different rodeo committees. The people who put these rodeos on, not the cowboys, they standardize these rules, establish a point system to determine world champions. I mean, it all gets very official judging. The they established this fair practice in advertising. I mean, they're getting the idea this is a money making business and we got to get more organized about this. There's even a first cowboy union. 1936, right?

C (14:22)

Correct. So the RAA was a producers organization in an attempt to standardize. The Cowboy Turtle association is the union that organized in 1936. We do have an early form of standardization though. In 1915, the Wild Bunch, which was put together by Lucille Mulhall from Oklahoma and Homer Wilson was. That's actually the first time that we see standardized rules for roping contest. So it's not necessarily a union but there is that early standardization in the 19 teens. And part of that is because each rodeo kind of has its own flair. At that time. They had their own specialized events. They also had rule variations. And between the teens and the 1930s, they started to see more kind of scandalous activity with the producers. There was a lot of trouble with bloomers, which is what they called producers, that would set up the rodeo. They would take all the entry fees and all the ticket money, and then the last event, on the last day, they would take all of the money, including the prize money, and run and leave, leave those contestants stranded wherever they are. And sometimes it was not too convenient for them to get back to their homes.

B (15:51)

Yeah, they get right in that horseless carriage and take off, right pocket full of cash.

C (16:06)

After Civil War, regicide, and Cromwell's republic, the monarchy returned. But Britain would never be the same. I'm Professor Susanna Lipscomb and this month on Not Just the Tudors, we're transported back to the age of Restoration royalty from Charles II to Queen Anne and.

D (16:25)

The birth of the empire.

C (16:28)

Join me on Not Just the Tudors from History Hit wherever you get your podcasts.

B (16:44)

Rodeo really, as we've explained, starts in Mexico, comes up north, and then is sort of appropriated by American Anglo people. Has it managed along the way to maintain a level of diversity or not?

C (16:58)

Not so much if you're looking at professional rodeo. So we do have diversity. In early contests, like the 1911 contest at Pendleton Roundup, for example, the bucking competition was a three way tie, so they had to have a buck off. And one of the cowboys was Native American, one was African American and one was white. And the judges gave the contest to the white cowboy. And the audience rebelled. They believed that George Fletcher, who was the African American cowboy, was the true winner of that bucking contest. And the audience truly did not settle until they agreed to give him a People's Choice award, so to speak. But then society kind of takes over. So professional rodeos never had rules that exclude anyone. But racism ramps up. In the 1920s. Across the country, we see an increase in lynching and riots. And so a lot of black cowboys would experience going to the rodeo. They had paid their entry fee and then were not allowed into the back area, which is cut off to the public to get to the bucking shoots by some gate holder who said, you're not supposed to be here. And so that's how that really unfolds for quite some time. Out of that, we see the Bill Pickett rodeo start, we see black rodeo Kind of separate and organize on their own professional level. The same with Native American rodeo.

B (18:41)

Yeah. And with baseball. I mean, this is what happens. As an unfortunate upshot of all of this racism, you end up with these sub venues, sort of sub. Sub genres of this thing. Black rodeos, gay rodeo, women's rodeos emerge. Right, because they were in the beginning involved, but then were excluded. Am I right?

C (19:02)

That is correct. In the 1930s. So in the 1936 Union organization with the Cowboy Turtle association, they allowed women to be members, but they were not voting members. And so there really wasn't much of a benefit to them. Although they did make some demands verging on the edge of striking, which we. We had three big cowboy strikes in 1935 and 36. And they did do that a couple of times the women did, to try to ensure that they were going to get a prize monies. But in 1948, they have been excluded from rodeos for seven years from professional rodeo. And in 1948, they organized the Girls Rodeo association, which is meant to be a professional rodeo association for the women to compete. And now that is the Women's Professional Cowgirl Association.

B (19:58)

Oh, that must have driven you crazy when you were a kid. I mean, the idea was that it was too physical for women. It was too, too much of a ride on one of those bucking broncos. Some had died because of the hobbling, tying a foot to the stirrup, but of course, not any more than men had done. It was the same old story and everything. Over time, of course, the sport gets safer. Right. This is. There are measures taken along with the standardization of it to prevent mishaps like getting kicked in the chest and so forth, I imagine.

C (20:26)

Yeah. I think the biggest safety changes have been for bull riders after the death of Lane Frost and the. Actually it was the cowboys who organized and created the vest that the bull riders wear today so that they cannot be hooked. They also blunted the horns of the bulls so they weren't so sharp and piercing. And so that vest has helped save hundreds of cowboys lives. And then the mask also, which became popular after Tough Hedemann had suffered so much from a bull stepping in his face.

B (21:04)

Yeah, exactly. We did a recording. This is. We're recording this during Black History Month. And I just want to point out that one of the best episodes I think we ever did was in our first year, long time ago, on Black Cowboys, episode 113 in the archive, which you can find in the list, what we think of as a white man's west was anything But. And that went, of course, for the women as well.

C (21:25)

Absolutely. My primary research focuses on cowgirls in the rodeo, and they were present all along. Lucille Mulhall from Oak, Oklahoma, is the woman who really opens the arena, so to speak, opens the shoots for those cowgirls in 1904. And then again, she ropes for Teddy Roosevelt, who was in Oklahoma City at the time and happened to see her and ask her father to bring her to Washington, D.C. and she and her family roped in the inaugural parade for McKinley.

B (22:01)

Then there was Annie Oakley, of course. I mean, there were these. These iconic women who were involved in this realm, right?

C (22:06)

Yes. Annie Oakley was a shootist, and she. She does some of her stunts on horseback. She was never a working cowgirl, but she does make a transition for women. So it's really important. Her role is really important in this story because she was always very proper and wanted to appear very feminine, which kind of offsets those about women becoming too mannish or too masculine if they participated in these types of events. And although she's an advocate for women to learn to shoot, she does not necessarily align herself with a lot of what would be the upcoming new woman's activism and goals. But she does play an important part because people can see that she can do this type of activity and still be feminine enough that it's suitable for society.

B (23:04)

Of course, very, very nice pictures taken of her. All those. Those postcards you could get. You mentioned this someone named Lucille Mulhall. I just want to circle back to her. She was a roper who competed against men, beat all of them, so much so they didn't believe she was a woman.

C (23:19)

Right, Correct. That happened in El Paso, Texas, at a roping event. She was roping against the men there. She was still quite young, and she beat all of the men who jumped into the arena and tried to start ripping her clothes off because they didn't believe she was a woman and that a woman could beat them. And thankfully, her brother Charlie comes to her rescue before it gets too embarrassing for her. But, yeah, she's a roper. She's also the first woman to produce a rodeo. She has her own rodeo troupe for a bit. She also has her own vaudeville show that highlights the west and roping and incident where a steer gets into the audience in Tulsa and she has to rescue the audience from that steer roping that steer in Tulsa. She really does a lot for women in rodeo. And she's another good transitional figure because she rodeoed in long split skirts, so it looked like a dress when she was riding. But women change their styles for safety reasons. She gets hung up in there in New York at Madison Square Garden and she gets her skirt hung and is drug for a ways from by her horse. And so women start to influence fashion changes as well.

B (24:39)

Yeah, I mean, I think of rodeo now and I think of it as a mixed gender sport. Right. I mean, I can't remember when I went the last time how it worked out that way, But I don't think of them as separate nowadays. Is that true?

C (24:50)

Yes. So the women still have a professional association and they still do have their separate shows and contests, but for the most part it is co ed. They're not competing against each other right now the way they did at the turn of the century and into the early 1920s and early 30s. But the schedule always includes women into events. And women participate in other ways too. We have pickup riders that take the cowboy off of the Bronx. And for the longest time those were men. But now there are several women who are pickup riders in the professional association. So, yeah, I would say it's co ed.

B (25:36)

It's such an interesting thing to consider. 1920s chuffs coming off of the suffragette movement, women's right to vote, very recently, and suddenly we're seeing women who are, you know, doing the same thing, if not better than men in the, in the, in a western arena. It really had a lot to do with the changing perception of women's roles in America, didn't it?

C (25:55)

I think that speaks to the popularity of it. Yes. These women are very influential nationally with changing the part of the dress reform change. Also rodeo cowgirls at that time were able to manage their own careers and they continued competing after they married and had children. So while they were on the road, they made arrangements for their children, once they were school age to attend school part of the year and travel with the parents the rest of the year. And so they're really exceptional for women during the time when they were expected to not have outside activities after they married and had children. Also, rodeo's the first professional sport for women.

B (26:41)

Hmm, interesting. I had never thought of that today. Is it on rodeo still on the rise? Has it plateaued in terms of popularity? I know it comes and goes with the professional bull riding series that I see on television and so forth, but that's very specific.

C (26:57)

It is. I would say there's a resurgence of rodeo in part because of media. So they have the Cowboy Channel now that's part of RFD tv. There's a cowgirl Channel as Well, and so that they can reach millions of viewers there. But I think in part, too, pop cultures played a role in that. The reconnection and interest in the Western or the modern Western. As we're starting to see more Western film being done again in Western series on television, there's more interest. And so we've seen an increase in Western wear across the globe. And also, you know, audiences come from around the world sometimes to see rodeo.

B (27:46)

Yes, it is one of those sports that you, if you're not keyed into it and aware of it yourself, you end up in one of those arenas and you say, oh, I see what I've been missing. It's a gigantic spectacle. It's really fun to see that. But when you back up, Tracy, because you study this as scholarship and so forth, what do you think rodeo has given to America? What's your takeaway from that standpoint, sociologically speaking?

C (28:11)

Well, historically, it gives us a couple of things. When my students take the rodeo history class that I created, they study the way that it affects local and regional relationships, the cause and effects that rodeo brings into those areas. And in a sense, I mentioned a living history. It's nostalgic. So people go and see what they think was a part of the Western frontier, even though it's quite different than it was before it was so commercialized. And so we look and study at the culture, we look at the continuity of that culture, and it also helps us to kind of understand how that's been a longevity, especially in the West. And so it kind of perpetuates that idea of American individualism and a part of the American character, because the cowboy is one of the most recognized American icons from the West. So I think it really gives us a great deal of information. And when you start peeling back those layers, you find even more about the effects that it has nationally and globally.

B (29:29)

At some point, I know that Queen Victoria was fascinated by rodeo, I mean, and that because of Buffalo Bill, I'm sure. But does it go international at some point?

C (29:40)

Yes, indeed it does. There are tours that rodeo producers put on. In 1924, there was a brief tour through the UK the London Rodeo was so popular that they extended their time there so that they could have more shows for the audience. They perform for royalty while they're there, and so they become very popular. In fact, I think it was Prince Albert that gifts a horse to one of the cowgirls, who was a very good bronc rider, and she treasured that horse for the rest of her life.

B (30:20)

Does it continue Today I thought that this was a modern version of it that we're talking about. Is this not today?

C (30:25)

So today, yes, there is some travel today. We have also cowboys that hold rodeo clinics to teach in the south of France, to teach bull riding there. So it is still very international. A lot of the cowgirls would also perform competitions in the off season. So in Spain they would do some steer riding. Also some rodeo in Mexico, others went to the Far east. So in former Siam and they were very popular there as well. So it is very International. The 1924 London Rodeo was a big hit with the fans, but also one of the places that they saw a great deal of demonstration from animal rights activists in, in 1924.

B (31:18)

And I imagine there must be South American rodeo, right? I mean the, the Argentinians must have their version of this.

C (31:24)

Yes, in fact, many countries do. So we have rodeo in the United States in every state. It's a national sport in Mexico and in Brazil we get. There actually are a lot of bull riders who come to the United States from Brazil to participate in the professional bull riding Association. Also Australia is another country that we see a lot of reciprocal exchange with the contestants. So yeah, there are some style of rodeo in most countries.

B (31:59)

I'm curious, what is your favorite activity when you go see one of these rodeos?

C (32:04)

My new favorite is again a local interest. So a lot of rodeos kind of separate their history with Native Americans in the area. But here in eastern Oregon, the Pendleton Roundup, which is a long standing rodeo, embraces that. And so they have a connection with the Confederated tribes of the Umatilla. One of the things that they do is that they have the relay races and there is a separate circuit for Native Americans. On this relay race, they ride bareback. It's very fast. So it's kind of the horse race that I like. And I enjoy the team roping. My sister and her husband are team ropers and so I always enjoy watching the team roping too.

B (32:53)

Wow. So it's a regular thing for you, you go on a regular basis?

C (32:57)

Yes, I actually am part of our first year experience students with our summer bridge program at Eastern Oregon. So we take students who are new to Eastern Oregon and many of them are international. And so we take them to the Roundup every fall and it's always so much fun because they have the best questions having never seen rodeo at all. So it's a good time.

B (33:22)

Dr. Tracy Hanschu grew up on a Texas ranch where her dad was a bull rider and she helped move the cattle from pasture to pasture nowadays. She's a assistant professor of history at Eastern Oregon University. Her most recent publication Here she comes wearing them britches. Look it up. It was in Montana. The Magazine of Western History earned her national recognition and a nice Western Heritage Wrangler Award. What's new on the horizon for you Tracy? What's coming up?

C (33:50)

I have a couple of things in the works, so I have a chapter that analyzes the role of women in the western in Taylor Sheridan's 1883 that'll be part of a two volume collection. And I also have a book coming out hopefully later this year that will really look at cowgirls influence and experiences for women in comparing them with women in labor and their influence with women, you know, establishing their own careers. So that hopefully will be out later this year through University of Nebraska Press.

B (34:27)

How cool. Well, nice to meet you. Thank you so much for joining us.

C (34:30)

Thank you. Nice to meet you too.

B (34:37)

Thanks for listening to this episode of American History Hit. As you've made it this far, why not like and follow us wherever you get your podcasts? American History Hit A podcast from History Hit.

D (34:55)

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A (35:51)

Lunch was great, but this traffic is awful. Can we stop at a bathroom?

B (35:55)

Are you alright?

C (35:56)

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A (36:03)

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E (36:19)

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C (36:49)

Epi and if Creon could help.