- This event has passed.
Citizen Cowboy: Will Rogers and the American People (2024) book signing and conversation with Steven Watts
November 3, 4 p.m.–5 p.m.
Event Navigation
On Sunday, November 3, from 4 to 5 p.m., author Steven Watts will have a book signing and discuss his title, Citizen Cowboy: Will Rogers and the American People (2024, Cambridge University Press).
About the title:
“Citizen Cowboy is a probing biography of one of America’s most influential cultural figures. Will Rogers was a youth from the Cherokee Indian Territory of Oklahoma who rose to conquer nearly every form of media and entertainment in the early twentieth century’s rapidly expanding consumer society. Through vaudeville, the Ziegfeld Follies and Broadway, syndicated newspaper and magazine writing, the lecture circuit, radio, and Hollywood movies, Rogers built his reputation as a folksy humorist whose wit made him a national symbol of common sense, common decency, and common people. Though a friend of presidents, movie stars, and industrial leaders, it was his bond with ordinary people that endeared him to mass audiences. Making his fellow Americans laugh and think while honoring the past and embracing the future, Rogers helped ease them into the modern world and they loved him for it.”
-from the publisher
Copies of his book will be available for purchase through the author at the event.