Annie Oakley

American sharpshooter

• Born: August 13, 1860
• Birthplace: Darke County, Ohio
• Died: November 3, 1926
• Place of death: Greenville, Ohio

An expert markswoman and consummate performer, Oakley traveled throughout the United States and Europe demonstrating her shooting skills during an era when shooting was almost exclusively a man’s sport.

Early Life

Phoebe Anne Moses—who was nicknamed Annie—was the fourth daughter born to the Quakers Jacob and Susan Moses of rural Darke County, Ohio. When Annie was still a young child, Jacob taught her to hunt and to trap. After Jacob’s death from exposure in 1866, Susan and her eight children were left destitute. Young Annie was sent to the county poor farm, but she was soon chosen by a young farmer to be a companion for his wife and infant daughter. Although it was common for poor children to be farmed out, the ten-year-old Annie’s fate was unusually cruel; she was overworked and physically abused by the farmer. For two years she was virtually a slave. In 1872, Annie fled, returning to the poorhouse, where she lived with the new superintendent and his wife as a member of their family. Under their care she attended school.

When Annie was fifteen, she returned to her mother. The enterprising young woman capitalized on her adroitness with firearms, entering into a business arrangement with a local merchant in which she supplied him with small game that was shipped to Cincinnati hotels. From that time forward, Annie earned her living with her shooting, proudly paying her mother’s mortgage and boasting throughout her life that she had never had money other than what she personally had earned. From her early years of depredation Annie learned frugality. Throughout her life, she shrewdly managed and invested her earnings, thereby enabling herself and her husband to live their retirement years in comfort.

Life’s Work

Annie Moses—in 1882 she adopted the stage name Oakley—was twenty-one when she met her future husband, sharpshooter Frank Butler. Exhibition shooting was at its peak in popularity when Butler, who was traveling in Ohio with a variety show, competed in a contest against Annie Moses. Although women sharpshooters were relatively common, Butler was surprised by the youthful, petite Annie Moses, who appeared to him to be a little girl. Moses outshot Butler that day, which marked the beginning of their courtship. The two married one year later.

During their early married years, Oakley and Butler toured variety theaters and skating rinks. It was at one such show that Oakley met the Lakota (Sioux) chief Sitting Bull , who became fond of her, naming her Watanya Cicilla, or “Little Sure Shot.” The two would meet again when they both worked for Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild West Show. Butler soon realized he was outdistanced by Oakley’s prowess and her showmanship; he retired from exhibition shooting to become Oakley’s manager.

In 1884, after a short stint with the Sells Brothers Circus, the still relatively unknown Oakley applied to Buffalo Bill Cody for a sharpshooting position in his Wild West Show. Although he initially refused her, after the sudden departure of his star marksman, Captain Adam Bogardus, Cody gave Oakley a three-day trial. He was delighted with “Missie”—as he called her—and with only a brief interruption, Oakley remained with Cody’s outfit until 1902.

Bursting into the arena sporting her trademark loose, dark, curly hair and her meticulously hand-sewn costumes of short skirts and leggings, Oakley was in constant motion during her ten-minute act. She leaped over a table to grasp her gun after a clay target had already been released, shot upside down, backward while looking in a hand mirror, and occasionally from horseback and from a bicycle. She clowned with audiences by feigning horror over missed shots, which she did intentionally so that she would not be accused of cheating. She shot cigarettes from her husband’s mouth and potatoes from her dogs’ heads, and she split a playing card turned sideways. Athletic and quick, Oakley was one of the finest shots, and clearly the most engaging exhibition shooter, of her era.

At the height of its popularity during the 1880’s, Buffalo Bill and his Wild West Show presented a spectacle of heroic cowboys and villainous horse-riding Plains Indians. Its massive cast of Indians, including for a year the famous Sitting Bull, and fancy-riding cowboys re-created shootouts, stagecoach attacks, and mock battles, thrilling audiences and generating an idealized image of the West in the minds of Americans and Europeans alike. Cody’s outfit was the first and best of the numerous Wild West shows that became the inspiration for film Westerns of a later era. The youthful athlete Oakley became an audience favorite, attaining international superstar fame. Her life, along with Cody’s, was mythologized.

After drawing record crowds at Staten Island and Madison Square Garden in 1886, the Wild West Show traveled in 1887 to London, where Oakley was universally praised by audiences and reporters. In England, the once-poor country girl charmed royalty and traveled in upper-class social circles. Remarkably, Oakley was accepted at elite British gun clubs, where, despite being a woman, she was admired for her expert shooting. In London, she began teaching women to shoot, a tradition she continued for the rest of her life. Women were as capable of shooting as men, she believed, and she advocated the carrying of personal arms as a means of self-defense.

Oakley left Cody’s show in 1887 for reasons that are obscured because neither Cody nor Oakley discussed the matter. During that year, she engaged in numerous exhibitions and matches, in which she had also participated when touring with the Wild West Show in order to earn prize money and gain publicity. In 1885, for example, she attempted to shoot, after loading the guns herself, 5,000 glass balls in one day, scoring 4,722 and breaking a record for the last 1,000, of which she missed only 16. She set several other records, including one for American doubles scoring—two traps released simultaneously. During 1888, Oakley also traveled on the variety circuit performing trick shooting on stage, spent a short time with Pawnee Bill’s Wild West Show, and starred in her first theatrical play, Deadwood Dick: Or, The Sunbeam of the Sierras. Although the critics despised the play, they wrote favorable reviews of Oakley. By early 1889, Oakley returned to Cody’s show, where she remained as a star performer until she retired in 1902.

By 1892, Oakley’s legend was firmly established; she had charmed London society, had become the darling of the newspapers, had achieved recognition at shooting clubs in England and the United States, and had even had clubs named for her. In 1889, she had extended her reputation to continental Europe when she traveled with Cody’s Wild West Show to France, Italy, and Germany. In 1893, even the United States Army admitted her expertise by sending representatives to learn from her while she performed at the Chicago World’s Fair.

Oakley’s apparent youthfulness generated much of her stage appeal. Only five feet tall and weighing approximately 110 pounds, the petite Oakley astounded audiences with feats of endurance with heavy guns. In 1902, when her hair suddenly turned white, and she could no longer project the image of a young girl, Oakley and Butler retired from the Wild West Show. She again tried acting, with a play called The Western Girl, written expressly for her and showcasing her marksmanship. This time, the play was successful with both critics and the public.

In 1903, Oakley’s relationship with the press was abruptly shattered when newspapers throughout the country printed a story originating in Chicago with William Randolph Hearst’s news service. Reportedly, Annie Oakley had been arrested stealing a man’s pants to support her cocaine habit. She was represented as a destitute drug addict. A woman claiming to be Annie Oakley had indeed been arrested, but the newspapers had failed to confirm her identity, and she was, in fact, merely a burlesque impersonator of Oakley. In one of the largest libel suits ever initiated, Oakley sued and won settlements from newspapers throughout the country. Her battle to clear her reputation lasted for nearly five years and absorbed much of her energy. During that time, she performed some of her best trapshooting, establishing her reputation among the elite of the sport.

Oakley officially retired from show business in 1913, after having spent a brief time with the Young Buffalo Wild West Show. Butler and Oakley moved to an idyllic spot on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, but after a lifetime spent on the road, they could not easily reconcile themselves to a sedentary lifestyle. They soon resumed traveling. During World War I, Oakley toured army camps demonstrating her shooting. She also campaigned for the Red Cross. Amid plans to reenter show business in 1922, Oakley was partially paralyzed in a car accident, which ended her career. She died on November 3, 1926, and was followed eighteen days later by her husband, Frank Butler.

Significance

In an era when shooting was considered a men’s sport, Annie Oakley advocated that all women be taught to shoot. She viewed guns as providing a form of independence for women, who, when armed and trained, would no longer be forced to rely on men for their protection. During her lifetime, Oakley estimated that she had trained more than fifteen thousand women and considered that women were as capable as men. She advocated providing shooting instructors and rifle ranges in schools for both boys and girls.

In other ways, Oakley was patently less iconoclastic. She jealously guarded her social reputation among upper-class Britons and Americans, bridling at challenges to her femininity, and when she was not performing, she functioned in what she deemed to be ladylike fashion: dressing conservatively, refraining from alcohol, and sharing a close monogamous relationship with her husband. During the suffragist movement, she condemned bloomers, which she considered unladylike, and “bloomer women.” She did not advocate women’s voting rights. She claimed that women should not “go in for sport so that they neglect their homes.” After retiring to the Eastern Shore of Maryland, however, Oakley found herself to be a failure at homemaking. “I went all to pieces under the care of a home,” she reported.

Interestingly, during the Spanish-American War in 1898, Oakley had written President William McKinley, requesting to be sent to the Cuban front. During World War I, she likewise wrote to the secretary of war, proposing the establishment of an armed women’s regiment for home defense. Although her suggestions were never seriously entertained, her intent was genuine. Annie Oakley, according to her own definition of femininity, achieved fame and success in a predominantly male field that required strength, stamina, and great skill.

Bibliography

Blackstone, Sarah J. Buckskins, Bullets, and Business: A History of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1986. A concise, detailed account of Cody’s Wild West, describing the variety of acts and the logistics of moving the massive show from one engagement to another. Blackstone provides the best analysis of the impact of Cody’s show on the development of the myth of the American West.

Kasper, Shirl. Annie Oakley. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992. Extensively utilizing newspapers and Annie Oakley’s own scrapbooks, journalist Kasper has written an interesting and detailed biography of Oakley in which she has attempted to separate myths from documentable facts about Annie Oakley’s life. Easily supplants earlier works as a definitive biography. Contains photographs, an index, and a bibliography.

McMurtry, Larry. The Colonel and Little Missie: Buffalo Bill, Annie Oakley, and the Beginnings of Superstardom in America. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2005. A dual biography of Oakley and Buffalo Bill. Oakley is portrayed as a quiet, reserved, and frugal woman, with a talent for showmanship and self-promotion.

Riley, Glenda. The Life and Legacy of Annie Oakley. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1994. Scholarly biography, providing an evaluation of Oakley’s legend and influence. Riley describes how Oakley sought to reconcile her public image as an athletic western woman with her private perception of herself as a genteel model Victorian wife.

Rosa, Joseph G., and Robin May. Buffalo Bill and His Wild West: A Pictorial Biography. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1989. As its title indicates, this book is liberally illustrated. It contains a section summarizing Annie Oakley’s career with, and apart from, Cody’s Wild West Show. Contains a bibliography and an index.

Russell, Don. The Lives and Legends of Buffalo Bill. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1960. Russell’s nearly five-hundred-page book on Buffalo Bill places Oakley’s life in the context of Cody’s Wild West Show. Russell provides the most detailed history available of Cody’s outfit.