L.A. Derby Dolls t-shirt worn by Dale Rio, aka Black Dahlia: Museum Object and Cultural History
L.A. Derby Dolls t-shirt worn by Dale Rio, aka Black Dahlia: Object Name: shirt, roller derby. Object Name: shirt. Physical Description: fabric, cotton (overall material).
The object in the museum catalogue
L.A. Derby Dolls t-shirt worn by Dale Rio, aka Black Dahlia, is a pink tank top with black printing on the front, "Derby Dolls" and "1.15.47" printed in black on the back. Dale Rio (aka Black Dahlia), was a member of many roller derby teams throughout her derby career, cut short due to injury. She was a member of the LA Derby Dolls, one of the original teams of the modern era and brought roller derby to Auckland, New Zealand, founding the Pirate City Rollers. She was the founder, editor, writer and photographer for the first roller derby publication of the modern era, Blood and Thunder, which soon became an international publication. Rio was also the founder of Shimmy, a 1950s-style pocketbook sized burlesque magazine. The cross-cultural intersections of roller derby and burlesque create a unique look into the sport that is dominated by women that includes performance along with athleticism and physicality.
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.
Materials, dates and provenance
- Object Name: shirt, roller derby
- Object Name: shirt
- Physical Description: fabric, cotton (overall material)
- Measurements: overall: 20 1/2 in x 14 in; 52.07 cm x 35.56 cm
- name of sport: Roller Derby
- level of sport: Professional
- web subject: Women
- ID Number: 2022.0148.01
- accession number: 2022.0148
- catalog number: 2022.0148.01
- 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.
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