Katie Taylor and Women's American Football

Sport in History Podcast

Welcome to the Sport in History Podcast brought to you by the British Society of Sports History in association with the Institute of Historical Research. This episode Geoff talks to Katie Taylor about the history of women's American football which has its roots right back in the late nineteenth century. Katie describes how pioneering female college students took up the game and adapted it to their own style of play in the 1880s and 1890s. She also looks at the phenomenon of West Coast Women's football in the 1890s with the attempt to set up a commercial league with mostly working class players. Katie also talks about the challenge of completing a PhD during lockdown as well as discussing her role as the BSSH's Postgrad and Early Career rep. Katie Taylor is currently a doctoral student at the International Centre for Sports History and Culture at De Montfort University, focusing on the history of female American football players. She is also a teacher at Peter Symonds Sixth Form College in Winchester where she specialises in the socio-cultural aspects of sport. Katie is a qualified American football coach and previously managed the Great Britain men’s Flag Football Team. You can find Katie's paper on women's American football at https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/rsih20/current Details of Katie's seminar at the IHR, as well as all the seminars in the BSSH's seminar series can be found here https://www.history.ac.uk/events/first-female-football-coach-a-history-female-american-football-coaches