Annie Oakley

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Annie Oakley (born Phoebe Ann Mosey; August 13, 1860 – November 3, 1926) was an American sharpshooter and folk heroine who starred in Buffalo Bill's Wild West.

Oakley developed hunting skills as a child in order to provide for her impoverished family in western Ohio. At age 15, she won a shooting contest against an experienced marksman, Frank E. Butler, whom she married in 1876. The pair joined Buffalo Bill in 1885, performing in Europe before royalty and other heads of state. Audiences were astounded to see her shooting out a cigar from her husband's hand or splitting a playing-card edge-on at 30 paces. She earned more than anyone else in the troupe except Buffalo Bill himself.

After a bad rail accident in 1901, she engaged in a less taxing routine, touring in a play about her career. She also instructed women in marksmanship, believing strongly in women's self-defense. Her stage acts were filmed for one of Thomas Edison's earliest Kinetoscopes in 1894. Since her death in 1926, her story has been adapted for stage musicals and films, including Annie Get Your Gun.

Early life

Annie Oakley was born Phoebe Ann "Annie" Mosey<ref name="enddebate">Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="Mosesmyth">Template:Cite web</ref> on August 13, 1860, in a log cabin less than Template:Convert northwest of Woodland, now Willowdell, in Darke County, Ohio, a rural county along the state line with Indiana.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Her birthplace is about Template:Convert east of North Star. There is a stone-mounted plaque in the vicinity of the site, which was placed by the Annie Oakley Committee in 1981, 121 years after her birth.

Annie's parents were Quakers of English descent from Hollidaysburg, Blair County, Pennsylvania: Susan (née Wise), born 1830,<ref name="Wukovits">Template:Cite book</ref><ref name="Wills">Template:Cite book</ref> and Jacob Mosey, born 1799, married in 1848. They moved to a rented farm (later purchased with a mortgage) in Patterson Township, Darke County, Ohio, sometime around 1855.

Born in 1860, Annie was the sixth of Jacob and Susan's nine children, and the fifth of the seven surviving ones.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Her siblings were Mary Jane (1851–1867), Lydia (1852–1882), Elizabeth (1855–1881), Sarah Ellen (1857–1939), Catherine (1859–1859), John (1861–1949), Hulda (1864–1934) and a stillborn infant brother in 1865. Annie's father was sixty-one years old at the time of Annie's birth, and became an invalid from hypothermia during a blizzard in late 1865, dying of pneumonia in early 1866 at age 66.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Her mother later married Daniel Brumbaugh, had another daughter, Emily (1868–1937), and was widowed once again.

Because of poverty following her father's death, Annie did not regularly attend school as a child, although she did attend later in childhood and adulthood.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> On March 15, 1870, at age nine, she was admitted to the Darke County Infirmary along with her sister Sarah Ellen. According to her autobiography, she was put in the care of the infirmary's superintendent, Samuel Crawford Edington, and his wife Nancy, who taught her to sew and decorate. Beginning in the spring of 1870, she was "bound out" to a local family to help care for their infant son, on the false promise of fifty cents per week (Template:Inflation) and an education. The couple had originally wanted someone who could pump water and cook and who was bigger. She spent about two years in near slavery to them, enduring mental and physical abuse. On one occasion, the wife put Annie outside in freezing temperatures without shoes as a punishment for having fallen asleep over some darning.<ref>Template:Cite video</ref> Annie referred to them as "the wolves". Even in her autobiography, she never revealed the couple's real names.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

According to biographer Glenda Riley, "the wolves" could have been the Studabaker family,<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> but the 1870 U.S. census suggests that they were the Abram Boose family of neighboring Preble County.<ref name=cen1870en>Template:Cite web</ref><ref name=fscen1870>Template:Cite web</ref> Around the spring of 1872, Annie ran away from "the wolves". According to biographer Shirl Kasper, it was only at this point that Annie met and lived with the Edingtons, returning to her mother's home around the age of fifteen.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Annie began trapping before age seven, and shooting and hunting by age eight, in order to support her siblings and her widowed mother. She sold hunted game to locals in Greenville, such as shopkeepers Charles and G. Anthony Katzenberger, who shipped it to hotels in Cincinnati and other cities.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> She also sold game to restaurants and hotels in northern Ohio. Her skill paid off the mortgage on her mother's farm when Annie was fifteen.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Surname

There are a number of variations given for Oakley's family name, Mosey. Many biographers and other references give the name as 'Moses'.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Although the 1860 U.S. census shows the family name as 'Mauzy', this is considered an error introduced by the census taker.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="kasper23">Template:Cite book</ref> Oakley's name appears as 'Ann Mosey' in the 1870 census<ref name="cen1870en" /><ref name="fscen1870" /> and 'Mosey' is engraved on her father's headstone and appears in his military record; 'Mosey' is the official spelling by the Annie Oakley Foundation, maintained by her living relatives.<ref name="enddebate" /><ref name="Mosesmyth" /><ref name="talltales">Template:Cite web (the answer is "no": "Her mother, Susan, named her Phoebe Ann…"; her father Jacob is surnamed "Mosey" in the National Archives War of 1812 military records; "In the 1870 Census, Annie is listed as Ann Mosey"Template:Spaced ndashbut, several other surname spellings appeared later. "The professional name Oakley was assumed in 1882, when Annie began to perform with Frank Butler; it was not a family name.")</ref> The spelling 'Mosie' has also appeared.

According to Kasper, Oakley insisted that her family name be spelled 'Mozee', leading to arguments with her brother John. Kasper speculates that Oakley may have considered 'Mozee' to be a more phonetic spelling. There is also popular speculation that young Oakley had been teased about her name by other children.<ref name="kasper23" /><ref name="Mosesmyth" />

Prior to their double wedding in March 1884, Oakley's brother John and one of her sisters, Hulda, changed their surnames to 'Moses'.<ref name="enddebate" /><ref name="talltales" />

Marriage and career

The Amateur Circus at Nutley (1894) by American illustrator Peter Newell. The scene depicted in the center is of Annie Oakley, standing on horseback, demonstrating her shooting ability.

Annie became well known throughout the region. On Thanksgiving Day 1875,<ref name=PBS>Template:Cite web</ref> the Baughman & Butler shooting act was being performed in Cincinnati. Traveling show marksman and former dog trainer Frank E. Butler (1847–1926), an Irish immigrant, placed a $100 bet (Template:Inflation) with Cincinnati hotel owner Jack Frost that Butler could beat any local fancy shooter.<ref>Longford Genealogy, Retrieved October 8, 2014.</ref> The hotelier arranged a shooting match between Butler and the fifteen-year-old Annie, saying, "The last opponent Butler expected was a Template:Convert 15-year-old girl named Annie."<ref name=PBS/> After missing on his 25th shot, Butler lost the match and the bet. Another account says that Butler hit on his last shot, but the birdTemplate:What fell dead about Template:Convert beyond the boundary line.<ref name="CE">Template:Cite news</ref> Butler began courting Annie, and they married. They had no children.<ref name=PBS/>

According to a modern-day account in The Cincinnati Enquirer, it is possible that the shooting match took place in 1881, not 1875.<ref name="CE"/> It appears the time of the event was never recorded. Biographer Shirl Kasper states that the shooting match took place in the spring of 1881 near Greenville, possibly in North Star, as mentioned by Butler during interviews in 1903 and 1924. Other sources seem to coincide with the North Fairmount location near Cincinnati if the event occurred in 1881.<ref name="CE"/>

The Bevis House hotel was still being operated by Martin Bevis and W. H. Ridenour in 1875. It opened around 1860, after the building had been previously used as a pork packaging facility. Jack Frost did not obtain management of the hotel until 1879.<ref name="CE"/><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> The Baughman & Butler shooting act first appeared on the pages of The Cincinnati Enquirer in 1880. The pair signed with Sells Brothers Circus in 1881, and made an appearance at the Coliseum Opera House later that year.<ref name="CE"/>

Oakley and Butler were married a year afterward. A certificate on file with the Archives of Ontario, Registration Number 49594, reports that Butler and Oakley were wed on June 20, 1882, in Windsor, Ontario.<ref>Template:Cite book "Sitting Bull was deeply moved by Annie's talent. He thought her ability with a gun was amazing."Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Archives of Ontario via Ancestry.com (Ontario, Canada, Marriages 1801–1928), Retrieved on October 1, 2014.</ref> Many sources say the marriage took place on August 23, 1876, in Cincinnati,<ref name="AOF">Annie Oakley Center Foundation, Retrieved October 2, 2014.</ref> but no recorded certificate confirms that date. A possible reason for the contradictory dates is that Butler's divorce from his first wife, Henrietta Saunders, was not yet final in 1876. An 1880 U.S. census record shows Saunders as married.<ref>Ancestry.com, 1880 U.S. Federal Census, Retrieved October 7, 2014.</ref> Sources mentioning Butler's first wife as Elizabeth are inaccurate; Elizabeth was his granddaughter, her father being Edward F. Butler.<ref>Ancestry.com, 1900 U.S. Federal Census, Retrieved October 7, 2014.</ref> Throughout Oakley's show-business career, the public was often led to believe that she was five or six years younger than she was; The later marriage date would have better supported her fictional age.<ref name="AOF"/>

Increase in popularity and touring

Annie and Frank Butler lived in Cincinnati for a time. Oakley, the stage name she adopted when she and Frank began performing together,<ref name=Mosesmyth/><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web (the answer is no: "Her mother, Susan, named her Phoebe Ann…"; her father Jacob is surnamed "Mosey" in the National Archives War of 1812 military records; "In the 1870 Census, Annie is listed as Ann Mosey" – but, several other surname spellings appeared later. "The professional name Oakley was assumed in 1882, when Annie began to perform with Frank Butler; …")</ref> is believed to have been taken from the city's neighborhood of Oakley, where they resided. Some people believe she took the name because that was the name of the man who had paid her train fare when she was a child.<ref name="AOF"/>

Oakley c. 1899

They joined Buffalo Bill's Wild West in 1885. At five feet tall, Oakley was given the nickname of "Watanya Cicilla" by fellow performer Sitting Bull, rendered "Little Sure Shot" in the public advertisements.

During her first engagement with the Buffalo Bill show, Oakley experienced a tense professional rivalry with rifle sharpshooter Lillian Smith. Smith was eleven years younger than Oakley, age fifteen at the time she joined the show in 1886, which may have been a primary reason for Oakley to alter her age as six years younger in later years due to Smith's press coverage becoming as favorable as hers.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> Oakley temporarily left the Buffalo Bill show but returned two years later, after Smith departed, in time for the Paris Exposition of 1889.<ref name="AmExAOBio"/> This three-year tour cemented Oakley as America's first female star.Template:Citation needed She earned more than any other performer in the show, except Buffalo Bill himself. She also performed in many shows on the side for extra income.<ref name="AmExAOBio"/> During her lifetime, the theatre business began referring to complimentary tickets as "Annie Oakleys". Such tickets traditionally had holes punched into them (to prevent them from being resold), reminiscent of the playing cards Oakley shot through during her sharpshooting act.Template:Citation needed

In Europe, she performed for Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom, King Umberto I of Italy, President Marie François Sadi Carnot of France, and other crowned heads of state. Oakley supposedly shot the ashes off a cigarette held by the newly crowned German Kaiser Wilhelm II at his request.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Buffalo Bill's Wild West poster

From 1892 to 1904, Oakley and Butler made their home in Nutley, New Jersey.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Oakley promoted the service of women in combat operations for the United States armed forces. She wrote a letter to President William McKinley on April 5, 1898, "offering the government the services of a company of 50 'lady sharpshooters' who would provide their own arms and ammunition should the U.S. go to war with Spain."<ref name="archives.gov">The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). Letter to President William McKinley from Annie Oakley. Retrieved January 24, 2008.</ref>

The Spanish–American War did occur, but Oakley's offer was not accepted. Theodore Roosevelt, did, however, name his volunteer cavalry the "Rough Riders" after the "Buffalo Bill's Wild West and Congress of Rough Riders of the World," of which Oakley was a major star.

In 1901 (the same year as McKinley's assassination), Oakley was badly injured in a train accident, but recovered after temporary paralysis and five spinal operations. She left the Buffalo Bill show, and in 1902 began a less taxing acting career in a stage play written especially for her, The Western Girl. Oakley played the role of Nancy Berry, who used a pistol, a rifle, and rope to outsmart a group of outlaws.<ref name="Wukovits"/>

Throughout her career, it is believed that Oakley taught more than 15,000 women how to use a gun. Oakley believed strongly that it was crucial for women to learn how to use a gun, as not only a form of physical and mental exercise, but also to defend themselves.<ref name="Wills"/> She said: "I would like to see every woman know how to handle guns as naturally as they know how to handle babies."

Film appearance

File:Annie Oakley shooting glass balls, 1894.ogv

Buffalo Bill was friends with Thomas Edison, and Edison built the world's largest electrical power plant at the time for the Wild West Show.<ref name=dorchester /> Buffalo Bill and fifteen of his show Indians appeared in two Kinetoscopes filmed September 24, 1894.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

In 1894, Oakley and Butler performed in Edison's Kinetoscope film Annie Oakley, also known as "Little Sure Shot" of the "Wild West",<ref>As titled and described by Raff & Gammon, Price list of films, ca. June 1895, p. 1 [MI].</ref> an exhibition of rifle shooting at stationary and moving objects, which was filmed November 1, 1894, in Edison's Black Maria studio by William Heise. It lasted 21 seconds at 30 frames and 39 feet.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Citation</ref> It was the eleventh film made after commercial showings began on April 14, 1894.<ref>Chronological Title List of Edison Motion Pictures Template:Webarchive – Library of Congress Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division Washington, D.C.</ref>

Libel cases

In 1904, sensational cocaine prohibition stories were selling well. Newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst published a false story that Oakley had been arrested for stealing to support a cocaine habit. The woman actually arrested was a burlesque performer who told Chicago police that her name was Annie Oakley.

Most of the newspapers that printed the story had relied on the Hearst article, and they immediately retracted it with apologies upon learning of the libelous error. Hearst, however, tried to avoid paying the anticipated court judgments of $20,000 (Template:Inflation) by sending an investigator to Darke County, Ohio, with the intent of collecting reputation-smearing gossip from Oakley's past. The investigator found nothing.<ref name="pbs">Template:Cite web</ref>

Oakley spent much of the next six years winning all but one of her 55 libel lawsuits against newspapers.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> She collected less in judgments than the total of her legal expenses.<ref name="pbs" />

Later years and death

Oakley in 1922

In 1913, the Butlers built a brick bungalow style home in Cambridge, Maryland. It is known as the Annie Oakley House, and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1996. In 1917, they moved to North Carolina and returned to public life.

After World War I broke out, Oakley reflected, "If I shot the kaiser, I might have saved the lives of several millions of soldiers. I didn't know then that he would swing the iron fist and shake the universe. Perhaps it was well for both of us that humans lack foresight." According to Butler, he sat down and wrote a letter to the Kaiser Wilhelm, saying that Annie Oakley wanted to repeat the shot. The kaiser never replied.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Oakley continued to set records into her sixties and also engaged in extensive philanthropy for women's rights and other causes, including the support of young women she knew. She embarked on a comeback and intended to star in a feature-length silent movie. She hit 100 clay targets in a row from Template:Convert at age 62 in a 1922 shooting contest in Pinehurst, North Carolina.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

In late 1922, the couple sustained injuries in a car crash that required Oakley to wear a steel brace on her right leg. She eventually performed again after more than a year of recovery, and she set records in 1924.<ref name="dorchester">Template:Cite web</ref>

Oakley's health declined in 1925, and she died of pernicious anemia in Greenville, Ohio, at the age of 66 on November 3, 1926.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> She was cremated and her ashes buried at Brock Cemetery, near Greenville.<ref name="CE" /><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="AmExAOBio">Template:Cite web</ref>

According to B. Haugen, Butler was so distraught by her death that he stopped eating and died eighteen days later in Michigan; he was buried next to her ashes.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Haugen, B., Annie Oakley: American Sharpshooter, Capstone, 2006, p. 88.</ref> Kasper reports that Butler's death certificate gave senility as the cause of death. One rumor claims that Oakley's ashes were placed in one of her trophies and placed alongside Butler's body in his coffin.<ref>Roadside America.com, Retrieved October 1, 2014.</ref> Both body and ashes were interred in the cemetery on Thanksgiving Day, November 25, 1926.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

After her death, her incomplete autobiography was given to stage comedian Fred Stone,<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> and it was discovered that her entire fortune had been spent on her family and her charities.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Shooting prowess

Oakley shooting over her shoulder using a hand mirror

Biographers, such as Shirl Kasper, repeat Oakley's own story about her first shot at the age of eight. "I saw a squirrel run down over the grass in front of the house, through the orchard and stop on fence to get a hickory nut." Taking a rifle from the house, she fired at the squirrel, writing later that, "It was a wonderful shot, going right through the head from side to side".<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

According to Encyclopædia Britannica :<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>Template:Blockquote

Association with Sitting Bull

R. A. Koestler-Grack reports that, on March 19, 1884, she was being watched by Chief Sitting Bull when:Template:BlockquoteOakley and Sitting Bull purportedly met and bonded while working together on a Buffalo Bill show in Minnesota.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Sitting Bull joined with Buffalo Bill after being paroled, having led the last major Indian uprising against the federal government; his status as a great warrior and leader was legendary worldwide by the time he and Oakley met.<ref>Utley, Robert M. The Lance and the Shield: The Life and Times of Sitting Bull. 1st ed. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1993. p. 263.</ref> The former Indian Chief was so impressed with Oakley's skills that he offered $65 (equal to $Template:Inflation today) for a photograph of them together.<ref name="pbs.org">Biography: Sitting Bull American Experience (PBS)</ref> According to Oakley, the admiration and respect was mutual and only increased as they spent more time together.<ref name="pbs.org" /> Sitting Bull felt Oakley must be "gifted" by supernatural means, in order to shoot so accurately with both hands. As a result of his esteem, Sitting Bull symbolically "adopted" Oakley as his daughter in 1884, naming her "Little Sure Shot," a title that Oakley went on to use throughout her career.<ref>"Annie Oakley" Template:Webarchive, Dorchester Library</ref>

Legacy

Oakley's worldwide stardom as a sharpshooter enabled her to earn more money than most of the other performers in the Buffalo Bill show.<ref name="AmExAOBio" /> She did not forget her roots after gaining financial and economic power. She and Butler often donated to charitable organizations for orphans.<ref name="AmExAOBio" />

Oakley also proved to be a great influence on women. She urged that women serve in war, though President William McKinley rejected her offer of 50 woman sharpshooters for service in the Spanish–American War.<ref name="archives.gov" /> Beyond this offer to the president, Oakley believed that women should learn to use a gun for its empowering image.<ref name="bestshot">Template:Cite journal</ref> Laura Browder discusses how Oakley's stardom gave hope to women and youth in Her Best Shot: Women and Guns In America. Oakley pressed for women to be independent and educated.<ref name="bestshot" /> She was a key influence in the creation of the image of the American cowgirl. Through this image, she provided substantial evidence that women are as capable as men when offered the opportunity.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

A vast collection of Oakley's personal possessions, performance memorabilia, and firearms are on permanent exhibit in the Garst Museum and the National Annie Oakley Center in Greenville, Ohio.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> She has been inducted into the Trapshooting Hall of Fame,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> the National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> the National Women's Hall of Fame,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> the Ohio Women's Hall of Fame,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and the New Jersey Hall of Fame.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> A statue of Oakley stands at the Annie Oakley Memorial Plaza in Greenville, Ohio.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Filmography

Year	Title	Role	Ref.
1894	Annie Oakley	Self	<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
1910	Actors' Fund Field Day		<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

See also

• Belle Starr
• Calamity Jane

Further reading

• Template:Cite book

External links

• Template:IMDb name
• Template:Internet Archive author
• Annie Oakley - Biography by Dorchester County Public Library, Cambridge, MD
• Annie Oakley Center Foundation frequently asked questions about Annie Oakley
• American Experience | Annie Oakley | People & Events | PBS
• "Little Miss Sure Shot"Template:Spaced ndashThe Saga of Annie Oakley
• Scanned 1898 letter from Anne Oakley to President McKinley advocating the use of women in military combat (from the National Archives and Records Administration)
• Template:Cite web