The Lift Line is a blog on the history of skiing. The content is based on ongoing research for my dissertation. It offers a critical history of skiing that attempts to integrate skiing into larger historical trends. It also seeks to reveal the many things skiing can teach us about history more broadly. Read more below.
Latest Posts
It’s time for some context, Black skiing & U.S. History
Right now ski resorts, ski media, and skiers are focused on the lack of Black skiers in North American skiing. But this attention isn’t as new as it sometimes feels. In the 1970s, at the height of the Black Power Movement, for the first time skiers widely considered the absence of Black people in skiing.…
How Much is a Life Worth?
On the night of February 13, 1885, the whole mountain ran. The papers reported that a mile-long avalanche raced down the mountain above the town of Alta, upturning trees and boulders, producing hurricane-force winds, and burying three-fifths of the diminutive mining town the three men would travel from. In the dead of night, the townspeople…
Why do skiers find the cold so sexy?
Barely clothed women cover ski advertisements. But looking through a collection of old marketing materials, this ad for the Catskills from the early 1950s caught my eye. My first thought: “her butt must be so frostbitten.” In it, the woman sat almost entirely naked. Decked out in high heels, white gloves, and a suggestive fur…
From Bombing to Shredding: The development of metal skis may never have happened without the military-industrial complex
Howard Head was a tall man with a shiny bald head and ears that stuck out from his head, as though he were pushing them forward to better hear someone. He was also a famous man. At least, his skis and tennis racquets were famous. But sitting in the Archive Center at the National Museum…
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