Stephanie Vander Wel, University at Buffalo Archives

Author: Stephanie Vander Wel, University at Buffalo

Author

Stephanie Vander Wel, University at Buffalo

Stephanie Vander Wel has served on the faculty at the University at Buffalo's Department of Music since 2008 after receiving her Ph.D. from the University of California, Los Angeles. Her book Hillbilly Maidens, Okies, and Cowgirls: Women’s Country Music, 1930-1960, published by University of Illinois Press in 2020, explores the sonic and embodied performances of female country artists in relation to the expansion of early and mid-century country music in geographical locales significant to the production of country music: 1930s Chicago, 1940s California, and 1950s Nashville. The book’s focus on the role of musical performance highlights both the sonic qualities (notably the range, register, and timbre of vocal style) and theatrical conventions of women in country music, demonstrating the breadth of their performative agency and vision in articulating the complexities and paradoxes of white, rural, working-class womanhood within specific historical periods shaped by economic uncertainty and mobility, migration, shifts in gender roles, and industrialism. PopMatters has named Hillbilly Maidens, Okies, and Cowgirls one of the best nonfiction books for 2020. Todd Burns of Music Journalism Insider has interviewed Vander Wel about her book and how she came to write about women in country music.

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Dolly Parton Took Control of Her Career by Making Men the Butt of the Joke

by Stephanie Vander Wel, University at Buffalo August 31, 2026

Of all the moments that capture Dolly Parton’s musical talents, fierce intelligence and driving ambition, I often find myself thinking back to an awkward, ad-libbed... Read more.

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Blowing Away Wind Farms

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9/11 Meets Rosh Hashanah: A Time for Remembrance and Atonement

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Author: Stephanie Vander Wel, University at Buffalo

Author

Dolly Parton Took Control of Her Career by Making Men the Butt of the Joke