Rodeo History

In the spirit of The Boys in the Boat comes the captivating true story of the Hawaiian cowboys who changed rodeo and the West forever.

The working cowhand of old was a dusty laborer, but today's rodeo performers can hone their skills before small-town crowds and be stars in urban coliseums.Historian Kristine Fredriksson follows the evolution of rodeo from the range to Buffalo Bill's Wild West to the extravaganzas in modern times.

“We don’t complain about things, Kristi. We fix them.” Taking her father’s words to heart, South Dakota's first woman governor Kristi Noem shares heartfelt—and heartbreaking—lessons on making things right in the world, from her childhood on a farm in the vastness of rural America, to the marbled halls of Congress, to the national spotlight amid a global pandemic.

Rodeo is a dangerous and painful performance in which only the strongest and most skilled riders succeed. In the popular imagination, the western rodeo hero is often a stoic white man who embodies the toughness and independence of America’s frontier past. However, marginalized people have starred in rodeos since the very beginning. Cast out of popular western mythology and pushed to the fringes in everyday life, these cowboys and cowgirls found belonging and meaning at the rodeo, staking a claim to national inclusion.