Talk Derby to Me 2012 Trading Cards: Museum Object and Cultural History

The object in the museum catalogue

Roller derby sports card featuring athletes from the various Windy City Rollers roller derby teams. Each card has a color photograph of the athlete on the front of the card along with their derby name. The back has a list of stats and random facts about the athlete. This card is the first card in the series.

Modern roller derby began in 2001 after four teams were formed and founded under the Bad Girls Good Women Productions (BGGW) name. In 2002, the flat track derby, Texas Rollergirls was formed from 65 members of the first BGGW teams after a disagreement over management practices caused a permanent split. BGGW took the remaining 15 skaters and became the TXRD Lonestar Rollergirls forming a banked track league. A truly grass roots movement, the flat track derby uses a not-for-profit organizational model with female identifying skaters running the leagues and using their own money to buy rink time, produce tournaments, and print programs, putting any money earned, back into the organization.

Using this model, Elizabeth Gomez (aka Juanna Rumbel) and Kelly Quinn Mallozzi (aka Sister Sledgehammer) created the Windy City Rollers (WCR) in 2004 becoming the first all-female flat track roller derby league in Chicago. Because the sport was relatively new, roller derby teams were spread throughout the country making travel to practices difficult, so WCR created four ‘home’ teams to train, practice and compete against each other for derby experience.

In 2005, WCR hosted the first national meeting of leagues to formalize a governing body that would become the Women’s Flat Track Derby Association (WFTDA). Regulations for the sport were created during this meeting which provided guidelines for skater training and officiating and shaped policies revolving around diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Although skaters still choose alternate names for their derby ‘characters’, roller derby has become a serious sport with an emphasis on athleticism, strategy, and competition. Evolving from a few teams in the United States to hundreds of teams worldwide, roller derby creates a safe space for women to feel strong and empowered. The WCR has been a leader in formalizing the sport and providing a training ground for future derby athletes.

Materials, dates and provenance

• date made: 2012
• Object Name: card, roller derby
• Physical Description: cardboard (overall material)
• Measurements: overall: 3 1/2 in x 2 1/2 in; 8.89 cm x 6.35 cm
• name of sport: Roller Derby
• level of sport: Professional
• wearer's community: Women
• ID Number: 2023.0069.01
• accession number: 2023.0069
• catalog number: 2023.0069.01
• Data Source: National Museum of American History

Sources and reuse

Catalogue descriptions and facts adapted from National Museum of American History through the Smithsonian's official Open Access dataset. This record explicitly marks its metadata CC0 1.0; formatting and selection have been changed.