World champion bronc rider at Calgary in 1912 and 1913 champion at Winnipeg, Fannie Sperry Steele (1887-1983) remarked, "Sometimes it takes a lot of grit to do what you want to do, but I can't see how people can stand the monotony of doing work at which they are not happy. Rodeo teaches you that death is right around the corner, and the ‘now' is all you have, so make the most of it. It may be the old Anglo-Saxon creed, ‘Eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow you die' carried over into rodeo, but it fits. We live each day as if it's our last. Steele died at the age of ninety-five and rode horseback until she was eighty-seven years old. Her legacy as a pioneer cowgirl, according to historian Mary Lou LeCompte, was that she helped make women's contests an integral part of professional rodeo. "[She] demonstrated that females were capable of far greater physical achievements than was generally believed possible."

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Trouble with the "Bronc's," Walla Walla, 1913
Edward F. Marcell, Portland, Oregon, 1913
Photographic Study Collection, 2004.301

Before there were enclosed arenas and front, or shotgun, delivery chutes, horses were snubbed to another horse and usually blindfolded. According to historian Bob Jordan, "The helpers would saddle the bronc, the rider would crawl on from the snubbing horse, and get his stirrups and rein. When he was ready he would say, ‘Jerk ‘er,' meaning jerk the blindfold and the snubber would release the horse at the same time." Whether this picture illustrates a breakdown in this process or the collision of the pickup man's horse with the bronc, one will never know.

In 1904 Bertha Kapernick Blancett (1883-1979) entered the bronc riding and wild horse race events at Cheyenne, Wyoming. The first Calgary Stampede in 1912 showcased Blancett's and other cowgirls' talents. By 1920 rodeos regularly featured three cowgirl events--bronc riding, trick riding, and relay racing. Cowgirls had to stay on a bronc for 8 seconds (men 10 seconds), ride with two reins instead of one, and ride one-handed like the men. Most cowgirls rode with hobbled stirrups (stirrups tied together) supposedly making the horse easier to ride. The ladies' bronc riding event was dropped by 1941.

While the vast majority of skateboarders are male, women are gaining ground and creating their own role models for young girls to emulate. In 1990 the first All Girl Skate Jam, a series of skating competitions in Reno, Nevada, was organized in an effort to recognize female skateboarding. Since then, there have been 15 jams held nationally and internationally. ESPN broadcast female skateboarding as part of its Philadelphia X-Games in 2002.
However, some male skateboarders still resent females "skating in on their turf." They use the derogatory term "Skating Betty" to describe girls who want to meet cute guys and not skateboard seriously.

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Art Acord and Outlaw, Both Down, Try Out, [Pendleton] Round Up, 1914
Walter S. Bowman, Pendleton, Oregon, 1914
Photographic Study Collection, 2005.047.6

By the age of nine, Artemus Ward Acord (1890-1931) was wrangling horses at a ranch near Stillwater, Oklahoma. In 1909 Acord began performing daredevil acts for the Dick Stanley-Bud Atkinson Wild West Show in New York. Soon he performed as a stuntman in one-reel westerns produced by the Bison Film Company in New Jersey. There for only a year, he then toured America, Canada and Europe with Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild West Show. Acord competed successfully in rodeos, winning many trophies and cash prizes in bronc riding, calf roping and steer wrestling events. In 1912 he won the steer wrestling championship at the Pendleton Roundup and won again in 1916, defeating Hoot Gibson. He would spend the remainder of his life starring in western motion pictures.

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Jess Stahl on Glass Eye, [California] Rodeo, Salinas
Trout Photo, Salinas, California, ca. 1910
Photographic Study Collection, 2005.047.8

African American competitor Jesse Stahl (1883-1938) began riding broncs in 1913. It is widely believed that due to his color and the effects of discrimination, Stahl was seldom awarded first place when sometimes clearly he should have been. Stahl won several steer wrestling and bull riding championships and is considered by some rodeo aficionados to be the greatest of all bronc riders. Edwin Cantlon recalled seeing Stahl at the fourth or fifth Reno Rodeo in Nevada in the 1920s: "And my lifelong remembrance of one of the characters at the rodeo that day was a colored man named Jesse Stahl, who, because of his color, was not allowed to compete in the rodeo, but he put on an exhibition where they put the saddle on a bronc backwards, and he mounted the horse with a suitcase in his hand. And then they turned the horse loose, and he made a real impressive ride. And his statement was, ‘I'm going home.'"

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Henry Warren [Saddle bronc riding at the Pendleton Round Up]
Walter S. Bowman, Pendleton, Oregon, 1913
Photographic Study Collection, 2005.063.3

In the early days of rodeo, saddle bronc riders, according rodeo historian Bob Jordan, "could do about anything to stay on; commonly, they carried a quirt to urge the horse a little if they felt they needed it. They usually fanned the horse with their hat. Commonly, two reins called pull reins were used with a halter. Later they went to one rein and called it a hack rein, or bronc rein." Humor is a way in which the cowboy deals with life's vicissitudes. Undoubtedly, the cowboy, laying on the ground in the middle of the action, briefly catching the afternoon sun, had some understated story to share about his day in the arena. If he had been the rider and bucked off, he could have said, "I lost my hat and got off to look for it." Likely story, dude.