1930s Roller Derby Scrapbook
Here are a few images from a tattered 1930s scrapbook documenting a roller derby event in Oakland, California. Derbyists include Mary Youpelee (a “full-blooded Indian princess”), Ivy King (aka “Poison” Ivy), Ma Bogash and her son Bill, Grace Freid, Hazel Roop, and Honey Thomas. Also, fan W.C. Fields. You’ll find the entire scrapbook in pdf facsimile at the bottom of this post. Now move outta the damn way, Ma, before I knock you on your keester!
(click on thumbnails to enlarge)
It’s unlikely this is a tournament, per se. I’ve never found evidence of those happening before 2006. Possibly a series of races or games, that was more Roller Derby’s style back then.
From 1935-1938, it was strictly a race, with no contact involved, After that contact and rules were added when it was discovered that fans enjoyed watching a game more than a race. Though the recent discovery that Leo Seltzer had lost a trademark lawsuit on “Roller Derby” as a race suggests that perhaps it became a sport/game/exhibition so as to avoid imitators calling their race a “roller derby.”
Originally it was a race that would run as a marathon for a few weeks in major cities with a map with lights that lit up as the skaters “reached” different cities going across the country (according the approximate mileage they’d skated).
The stuff about the “black” and “white” teams suggest that this is a fairly early set of programs, probably from the 1930s (or 40s?). Not the earliest game programs, because for those there were three teams named for what were then called Indian tribes). Apparently the black team at some point became the red team. The “insider” term for a roller derby villain back in the theatrical derby days was “red shirt.” While the heroes were “white shirts.”
Programs from the later 30s and throughout the 1940s always featured a “home team” (heroic/attractive skaters that appealed to fans) that wore white shirts versus an away team from whatever big city nearby (often New York or Chicago) that the locals knew they didn’t like so much.
Where this gets weirdly ironic is that the teams actually got real cities and names attached to them (though they seldom were based where they supposedly came from) for television when ABC/Dumont aired Roller Derby in 1950. Because the big cities also provided the biggest ratings, suddenly New York was the home of the heroic New York Chiefs, with the “red shirts” being assigned to Brooklyn’s Red Devils. Chicago (Westerners/Pioneers), Los Angeles (Braves) and San Francisco (Bombers) later got white shirt teams of their own.
One odd thing about the roller derby of that era is that the “facts” are almost always questionable to some degree. We know what the promoter (Leo Seltzer) and his road unit managers told the press, and what they and some skaters told writer Frank Deford. Deford never mentions Seltzer losing the court case, probably because the only folks who knew about it were dead or didn’t want it mentioned.
The press covered Roller Derby as a traveling event that was coming to town. As such, whatever “facts” were presented by the promoter were either passed on unchallenged or simply attributed to him and not researched. There was no Google in the 1930s, and to be honest derby articles today are rarely fact-checked.
Thanks for the detailed historical insights, Poobah. Your comment is a thoroughly enjoyable read. We’ve eliminated the word “tournament” from our description based on your comment.
Reblogged this on All Things Ace and commented:
This is so neato!
Thanks, glad you’re enjoying the raggedy thing!
very cool- blogged!
http://carlovely.tumblr.com/post/26447346807/1930s-roller-derby-scrapbook
Nice, thanks!
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Ok ma what would your roller derby name be? Paul if she need it help her figure it out?
Mother Teresa?
Abu the Bruiser?
Any other ideas?
Ladies say your prayers cause here come mother teresa!!
Reblogged this on Kathryn Ferreira and commented:
As an Oakland Outlaws fan and a lover of vintage ephemera, I have no choice but to love this Los Peeps collection of Oakland’s 1930s Roller Derby scene.
We shan’t stop you.
I love this post! Thanks again for scanning this scrapbook. My local roller derby peeps thank you too since I also pinned it to the Oakland Love Fest – http://pinterest.com/kathyferreira/oakland-love-fest/
Our pleasure, really! We’ll check Oakland Love Fest in depth when we have access to screens bigger than the phone’s. Thanks for everything.