Ashley Brown

Position title: Associate Professor & Allan H. Selig Chair in the History of Sport and Society

Email: abrown62@wisc.edu

Address:
Office Hours: Monday 3:00-5:00pm via Zoom

Ashley Brown

Biography

I am a historian of the twentieth- and twenty-first century United States whose research and teaching focus on the history of sport, African American history, and women’s history. The ways in which culture, labor, media, and social movements and trends intersect with sports guide my work. Biography is among my major research interests and areas of expertise. My book, Serving Herself: The Life and Times of Althea Gibson (Oxford University Press, 2023), is the comprehensive biography of the first African American to win titles at Wimbledon and the U.S. Nationals between 1956 and 1958. Gibson was also the first African American to compete on the Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA) Tour, where she made her competitive debut in 1963. Serving Herself has received the following honors: the Letitia Woods Brown Book Prize from the Association of Black Women Historians, the Herbert Warren Wind Award from the United States Golf Association, and the Harry Shaw and Katrina Hazzard-Donald Award from the Popular Culture Association. The Wall Street Journal selected Serving Herself for its “Five Best: Books on Women in Tennis.” The Atlantic featured the biography on its list of “Seven Books that Will Change How You Watch the Olympics.” Booklist named Serving Herself as among the Top 10 Sports Books published in 2023.

Professor Brown is not currently accepting incoming graduate students for academic year 2025-26.

Education

Ph.D., George Washington University
B.A., Mount Holyoke College

Books

Selected Publications

Academic

  • “The Odd Couple: Althea Gibson and Alice Marble, Forest Hills, 1950,” Sports through the Lens: Essays on 25 Iconic Photographs, eds. Maureen M. Smith, Daniel A. Nathan, and Sarah K. Fields (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2025), 54-62.
  • Review, King Richard (Warner Bros., 2021), Journal of American History, 109.3 (December  2022): 730-732.
  • “’Uncomplimentary Things’: Tennis Player Althea Gibson, Sexism, Homophobia, and Anti-Queerness in the Black Media,” Journal of African American History, 106.2 (Spring 2021): 249-277.
  • “Swinging for the State Department: American Women Tennis Players in Diplomatic Goodwill Tours, 1941-1959,” Journal of Sport History, 42.3 (Fall 2015): 289-309.

Non-Academic

Selected Awards

  • Harry Shaw and Katrina Hazzard-Donald Award, Popular Culture Association, 2024.
  • Herbert Warren Wind Award, United States Golf Association, 2023.
  • Letitia Woods Brown Book Prize, Association of Black Women Historians, 2023.
  • Vilas Faculty Early-Career Investigator Award, Office of the Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2023-2026.
  • Nellie McKay Fellowship, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2020-2021.
  • Fall Research Competition Award, Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research and Graduate Education, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2020.
  • Visiting Fellowship for Post-Doctoral Scholars, James Weldon Johnson Institute for the Study of Race and Difference, Emory University, 2017-2018.
  • Research Associateship, Five College Women’s Studies Research Center, 2016-2017.
  • National Edward Alexander Bouchet Graduate Honor Society, 2016.
  • 30th Annual Graduate Student Essay Prize, North American Society for Sport History, 2015.
  • Presidential Merit Fellowship, George Washington University, 2010-2015.

History Courses

  • History 136 – Sport, Recreation, and Society
  • History 201 – The Historians Craft: Heroes and Amazons in Sports
  • History 221 – Explorations in American History: African Americans and Sports
  • History 500 – Reading Seminar: Women and U.S. Sports History
  • History 500 – Reading Seminar: African American Migrations
  • History 500 – Reading Seminar: Biography in U.S. Sports History
  • History 500 – Reading Seminar: Sports, Health, and Presidents
  • History 600 – Advanced Seminar in History: History, Sport, and Film
  • History 901 – Biography in U.S. Women’s History
  • History 901 – African American Women, Freedom, and Identity