ELYSSA FORD

As a social and cultural historian, I am interested in gender, sexuality, and the American West. Much of my work focuses on questions of identity and memory. My first book Rodeo as Refuge, Rodeo as Rebellion (University Press of Kansas, 2020) looks at race- and group-specific rodeos in the United States, including Black, Indigenous, Hawaiian, and gay rodeo circuits. Rodeo’s ties to the past allow people to connect to it in a way that is deeply personal and to see it as culturally and historically relevant. Because of this, race- and group-specific rodeos not only have continued far beyond the time of segregation, but have become even more relevant for the communities that support them.

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My second book project, Slapping Leather: Queer Cowfolx at the Gay Rodeo (University of Washington Press, 2023) co-authored with Rebecca Scofield at the University of Idaho, studies the gay rodeo circuit, a site where participants created a different queer sexual subculture that straddled the urban and rural. We examine the tensions that formed between offering an inclusive environment (for men and women, for trans and cis competitors, and more) and one that still was created by gay men for gay men. Chapter topics include hypermasculinity, sex and AIDS, drag queens and camp events, political and consumer power, and the position of women within this setting.

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As a public historian, I am interested in promoting using local history as a teaching tool for facilitating student engagement, and I publish on profession-based learning project design with a focus on undergraduate students working collaboratively on projects with community partners. Since 2012 I have led the Nodaway County Digital History Project, which is home to virtual exhibits, lesson plans, and oral histories created by community members, volunteers, and undergraduate students at Northwest Missouri State University. Learn more about this project and my other public history work here.