Race and the Wild West
My first monograph, Race and the Wild West: Sarah Bickford, the Montana Vigilantes, and the Tourism of Decline, 1870 - 1930, appeared with the University of Oklahoma Press as Volume 17 of the Race and Culture in the American West series.
Race and the Wild West is the culmination of a research journey that began in graduate school. It is the winner of the 2021 SPUR Award for Best First Non-Fiction Book and a Finalist for Best Biography from Western Writers of America, and winner of the 2021 Gita Chaudhuri Prize awarded by the Western Association of Women's Historians.
I began researching Virginia City in 2007, as I worked toward my Master's degree in Public History at Washington State University. My Master's thesis, "Embers of the Social City: Business, Consumption, and Material Culture in Virginia City, Montana, 1863 - 1945," examined the social and economic history of Virginia City through the lives of several prominent business owners. In conducting that research, I repeatedly came across Sarah Bickford, an African American woman who owned the Virginia City Water Company from 1900 until her death in 1931. Unable to find enough information to include Bickford's story in-depth, I was forced to include her in a footnote. As I began my doctoral work in 2009, I hoped to find enough information on Bickford to write an article. I was fortunate to discover a great many details and sources on Bickford in often unexpected places. This led directly to Race and the Wild West, which examines Bickford's life and the the complex attitudes residents of Virginia City held regarding race in the nineteenth and twentieth-centuries.
Virginia City, Montana, was founded in 1863 with a gold strike at a place that came to be known as Alder Gulch. Like countless other western mining towns, it boomed, served as Territorial Capital for a decade, and then began a slow decline from which it never recovered. Among the residents who called Virginia City home were a number of African Americans. Though they never exceeded one percent of the total population, most were prominent in business affairs and evidence shows that their experiences were not characterized by racial derision or exclusion.
My research examines the experiences of Virginia City's African American residents and the intersections of race, gender, historical memory, and tourism where their lives crossed paths with men who had been involved in Virginia City's most notorious episode - the Vigilante movements of the 1860s, when more than fifty men were lynched for suspicion of having participated in highway robbery and murder. Using race as a lens casts these events in new and often unexpected light, adding depth and complexity to one of Montana's most recognizable legends.
Race and the Wild West is the culmination of a research journey that began in graduate school. It is the winner of the 2021 SPUR Award for Best First Non-Fiction Book and a Finalist for Best Biography from Western Writers of America, and winner of the 2021 Gita Chaudhuri Prize awarded by the Western Association of Women's Historians.
I began researching Virginia City in 2007, as I worked toward my Master's degree in Public History at Washington State University. My Master's thesis, "Embers of the Social City: Business, Consumption, and Material Culture in Virginia City, Montana, 1863 - 1945," examined the social and economic history of Virginia City through the lives of several prominent business owners. In conducting that research, I repeatedly came across Sarah Bickford, an African American woman who owned the Virginia City Water Company from 1900 until her death in 1931. Unable to find enough information to include Bickford's story in-depth, I was forced to include her in a footnote. As I began my doctoral work in 2009, I hoped to find enough information on Bickford to write an article. I was fortunate to discover a great many details and sources on Bickford in often unexpected places. This led directly to Race and the Wild West, which examines Bickford's life and the the complex attitudes residents of Virginia City held regarding race in the nineteenth and twentieth-centuries.
Virginia City, Montana, was founded in 1863 with a gold strike at a place that came to be known as Alder Gulch. Like countless other western mining towns, it boomed, served as Territorial Capital for a decade, and then began a slow decline from which it never recovered. Among the residents who called Virginia City home were a number of African Americans. Though they never exceeded one percent of the total population, most were prominent in business affairs and evidence shows that their experiences were not characterized by racial derision or exclusion.
My research examines the experiences of Virginia City's African American residents and the intersections of race, gender, historical memory, and tourism where their lives crossed paths with men who had been involved in Virginia City's most notorious episode - the Vigilante movements of the 1860s, when more than fifty men were lynched for suspicion of having participated in highway robbery and murder. Using race as a lens casts these events in new and often unexpected light, adding depth and complexity to one of Montana's most recognizable legends.
Extreme History Project Talk - February, 2021
Butte-Silver Bow Archives Public Lecture - June, 2022
Mentions & Reviews
"Her association with vigilante tourism in a town that was the capital of the territory when she got there but needed “Wild West history” to survive in the 20th century and beyond might be what draws readers to this book. But it was her association with the Virginia City Water Co. and the way she embodied racial pride and awareness (and instilled it in her children) that should most impress readers."
‘Race and the Wild West’ Book Review: Recalling Montana Pioneer Sarah Bickford | HistoryNet
‘Race and the Wild West’ Book Review: Recalling Montana Pioneer Sarah Bickford | HistoryNet
"This is a groundbreaking and rigorous study of a remarkable African American woman's life as well as an impressive work of social history." Montana: The Magazine of Western History
"A Western Heroine."
https://truewestmagazine.com/article/border-bandits-outlaws-and-cattle-thieves/
"African Americans in Western Historiography Since 2000," by Herbert G. Ruffin, II, provides an excellent, comprehensive examination of recent developments in the field, including Race and the Wild West.
https://mhs.mt.gov/pubs/magazine/DigitalIssueSum2020/MMWHDigitalSum2020_Ruffin.pdf
"A Western Heroine."
https://truewestmagazine.com/article/border-bandits-outlaws-and-cattle-thieves/
"African Americans in Western Historiography Since 2000," by Herbert G. Ruffin, II, provides an excellent, comprehensive examination of recent developments in the field, including Race and the Wild West.
https://mhs.mt.gov/pubs/magazine/DigitalIssueSum2020/MMWHDigitalSum2020_Ruffin.pdf