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Abstract
Racing to Win uses the lens of track and field, one of the few sports in which women could participate between 1928 and 1978, to examine domestic and international American politics. I argue that elite tracksters, a marginalized subset among women and athletes alike, used existing social networks and movements to advocate both cultural acceptance and political advances for women. My research reveals that women athletes in a broad range of roles—as undergraduates at black southern colleges, members of urban ethnic and religious track teams, civil rights activists, and international representatives of Cold War democracy—emphasized their femininity and skill to counter Americans' belief that female competitors transgressed acceptable social mores.
Olympic athletes positioned themselves as "foxes, not oxes" even as they prioritized sport, gradually expanding Americans' understanding of gender roles. As U.S. State Department goodwill ambassadors, they engaged in cultural diplomacy. After Title IX codified sex equality in education, athletes weathered a demographic realignment in women's track and allied with mainstream feminists to advocate women's professional sport. While neither U.S. historians nor gender specialists have fully addressed these alternative forms of activism, the close examination of women athletes' social and political advocacy reveals new insights into women's rights efforts outside mainstream feminist "waves" and the role of gender in segregated education, urban community networks, and Cold War cultural diplomacy.
This project connects U.S. political history, gender studies, education, and international relations, illuminating new facets of each. Uncovering a diverse network of women athletes, Racing to Win reveals the benefit of tracing interracial, ethnic, and religious connections in women's political history in alternative cultural channels like sport. Black women have served as models of American femininity in very few contexts. My research reveals that as athletes, they set the standard for how women should present themselves as national representatives at home and abroad after 1928. This dissertation explores alliances and relationships historians have overlooked to show how women's sport, a subject seemingly peripheral to historical analysis of national political culture and society, illuminates new insights about these central forces.
