Born towards the tail-end of America’s infamous ‘Wild West’ era, Annie Oakley (1860 - 1929) emerged as a pioneering figure in a time when sharpshooting was highly revered, yet dominated overwhelmingly by men. The Wild West, a period marked by exploration, conflict and frontier life, witnessed the rise of sharpshooting as both a skill needed for survival, and a form of entertainment. Throughout the rugged and often lawless landscape, sharpshooters were celebrated for their precision and bravery - skills deemed exclusive to men.
Oakley, however, defied these conventions with remarkable success. Renowned for her extraordinary marksmanship, and captivating stage performances, Oakley rapidly became one of the most famous sharpshooters of her time - earning her the title of “Little Sure Shot”. Her performances were always a blend of skill and showmanship, amazing audiences by hitting targets with incredible accuracy whilst performing complex and entertaining tricks: one of her most famous acts involve shooting targets whilst holding the gun upside down. Despite the dominance of men in the field, Oakley’s achievements were nothing short of groundbreaking. She not only performed in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show - which is considered to be the most famous Wild Western show of all time - but she also challenged the gender norms of her time by excelling in a field where women were rarely seen.
This article will explore Oakley’s remarkable journey, illustrating how she rose to prominence and cemented her place as one of America’s greatest sharpshooters. By tracing her career from her early days, through to her ground-breaking performances in global tours, this article will uncover the factors which contributed to Oakley’s legacy.
Early Life
Born on the 13th August 1860 in Ohio as Phoebe Ann Mosey, Oakley had a very troubled start in life. At just six years old, she lost her father (Jacob Mosey) to pneumonia. As was the norm at the time, Mosey had been the family’s breadwinner, working as a farmer in Willowdell, where he earned just enough to support his seven children, his wife, and place a deposit on some farmland. However, following Mosey’s death, Oakley’s mother (Susan Mosey) was left with no support - financial or otherwise. Mrs Mosey was forced to move to a smaller home, and when the eldest Mosey child (Mary-Jane) died also of tuberculosis, Mrs Mosey was forced to sell the remainder of her assets (including the family’s pink milkcow) to cover medical expenses and funeral costs. Throughout 1866 - 67, Mrs Mosey attempted to ease the family’s financial burden by working as a nurse at Ohio’s Darke County Infirmary - a facility which primarily housed the elderly, orphaned, and those with mental illnesses. Here, Mrs Mosey earned $1.25 per week (just under $50 in today’s money) but the financial strain remained overwhelming. Left with no other option, Mrs Mosey made the difficult decision to send Oakley to the infirmary, where she moved at just eight years old.
For Oakley, life inside the Darke County Infirmary was bleak. The infirmary functioned as a workhouse, which meant that the non-disabled inmates were forced to work long hours for little pay. Despite the owner of the infirmary, Mrs. Edington, promising Mrs. Mosey that Oakley “would have no work, [...] except to watch a three-week-old baby boy”[1], Oakley recounted that she “was held prisoner”[2] - being forced to wake up at four in the morning to tend to farm animals, pick fruit, harvest vegetables and hunt deer. In addition, Oakley also endured physical abuse from Mrs. Edington. In her autobiography, Oakley recalled that Mrs. Edington “struck me across the face, pinched my arms and threw me out of the doors into the deep snow and locked the door.”[3]
After six gruelling years, in 1874, Oakley managed to escape the infirmary. She returned home to live with her family, but the same economic issues still lingered - the family had very little money, leaving them frequently without food for long stretches of time. In an attempt to rectify this, Oakley used the skills she had learned throughout her time at the infirmary - and would use her father’s rifle to hunt small animals, which she would sell to a local grocery store for small amounts of money.
Within a year, Oakley’s gunmanship improved so greatly that she was not only able to feed her family, but was also able to pay off the family’s $200 mortgage. Even Oakley felt surprised by her abilities, remarking “I don’t know I acquired the skill. I suppose I was born with it.”[4]
Entrance into the Spotlight
By 1875, Oakley’s talents had caught the attention of a hotel owner named Jack Frost, who lived about 80 miles away in Cincinnati. Frost first became aware of Oakley’s skills after purchasing some of the game she had hunted, and was so impressed by the quality that he personally invited her to compete in a shooting contest against well-known, highly regarded marksman and performer - Frank Butler.
During the early 1870s, Butler was one half of The Graham & Butler Show, a show which depicted, and often heavily romanticised, the adventures of Wild Western cowboys. Wild Western shows like The Graham & Butler Show were not uncommon in 1870s America-
to name just a few, Texas Jack’s Wild West, 101 Ranch Wild West Show and Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show all attempted to depict life as a cowboy living through the American Frontier. Such shows regularly drew in enormous crowds (the lifetime tenure of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show, for instance, saw the sale of more than 2.5 million tickets) due to their low cost (with tickets being as low as 25 cents) and their country-wide tours across America. However, it is worth noting that, with the exception of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show in 1885, none of the Wild Western shows featured performances from women - reinforcing Oakley’s groundbreaking achievements.
What distinguished The Graham & Butler Show from all the others, however, was the nation-wide opportunity to partake in a shooting contest with Frank Butler. Though The Graham & Butler Show was a high-selling, and much enjoyed show, these advertisements had been in production for over five years without any audience response. Or at least, that was the case until November 1975, when Butler and Oakley went head-to-head in a competition.
The competition was no easy feat- there were twenty five shooting targets which the winner would have to hit consecutively. Ultimately, to the surprise of most, Oakley won the challenge - achieving the maximum score of twenty-five hits with twenty-five bullets, compared to Butler’s twenty-four hits with twenty-five bullets. According to Butler himself, he was a “a beaten man the moment [Oakley] appeared”[5], explaining that he was “taken off guard”[6] by the fact that Oakley was a woman - a fifteen year old, five-foot woman at that. As previously acknowledged, Wild Western shows did not feature women, or even dwell on the fact that women could be sharpshooters, making Oakley’s appearance even more shocking for Butler. In fact, as John Soluri points out, Oakley’s performance would have been “disturbing”[7] for nineteenth century audiences, due to the blend of “female labour and femininity exhibited in Oakley”[8] during a period where women were still confined to the private, family sphere. Remarkably, Butler did not feel threatened in his masculinity by Oakley’s talents. In fact, he rewarded her with $100, and tickets to The Graham & Butler Show for her and her family. Rapidly, Butler and Oakley developed a romantic relationship, and despite a 10 year age difference (26 and 16, respectively) the couple married in August 1876, less than a year after initially meeting.
During the early stages of their marriage, Butler continued to perform with The Graham & Butler Show, and Oakley was left to be a housewife, further reinforcing the difficulties that accompanied female performers during this era: the entertainment world, much like many other sectors in the 19th century, was still deeply entrenched in patriarchal norms. Women were often relegated to supportive or background roles (if at all), and the idea of a woman stepping into a male-dominated field, particularly one as rugged and traditionally masculine as sharpshooting, was unthinkable.
But, in the spring of 1882 Oakley’s life completely changed - just a short while prior to a performance, Butler’s show-partner, Graham, had fallen ill, rendering him unable to perform. Butler, left with no other choice, invited Oakley to come on stage to take Graham’s space - albeit merely as a prop-holder, and not as a sharpshooter. Unexpectedly, Butler’s aim throughout the performance was so poor that an audience member heckled “let the girl shoot!”, leading Butler to offer Oakley the chance to demonstrate her skills. Naturally, Oakley shot every target successfully, sparking an enthusiastic response from the crowd, and marking the beginning of The Butler and Oakley Show. Over the next two years, the duo performed together, and the word of Oakley’s extraordinary talents spread rapidly.
In 1884, she worked with a new group, the Sells Brothers Circus, as the “Champion Rifle Shot”, but left after just one season. It is interesting to see here how Oakley’s identity has been stripped away - no mention of her name, or the fact that she was a woman - which was a huge contrast compared to their other acts (including “Cannonball George” and the “Ringling Brothers”) once again highlighting the difficulties which accompanied being a woman in the field of sharpshooting.
By 1885, just one year later, Oakley joined the most popular group Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show. This show depicted the Wild West as a primitive, uncivilised area, and was considered a “rodeo-drama”. It involved a number of acts, including depictions of bison hunts, and train robberies. Shooting was the main feature of the show, but animals were also used as a form of entertainment.
Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show
Although Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show had only been running for two years prior to Oakley joining, her impact was both immediate and significant. Oakley quickly became a standout performer, spending most of her time in the lineup as the second act - a strategic placement that allowed the audience to acclimate to the sound of gunfire. Oakley was well-regarded by the audience, and had a reputation of being a charming and caring performer. Dexter Fellows, who served as the Press Agent for Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show described Oakley as somebody whose “personality made itself felt as soon as she entered the arena.”[9] Oakley would take pride in putting the audience at ease - she would aim to not only entertain audiences, but to also challenge societal perceptions regarding women and guns. By embodying both grace and precision throughout her performances, Oakley would demonstrate to the audience, but particularly the women and girls, how guns could be both a tool for entertainment, but also an item crucial for self-defence. However, Fellows also observed the initial shock that greeted Oakley’s performances - recounting how “her first few shots brought forth screams of fright.”[10] This was a reaction which did not stem from the volume gunshots, but rather from the shock of seeing a woman defying such deeply ingrained gender stereotypes.
Oakely’s tricks, which included shooting backwards whilst looking into a mirror, shooting corks off bottle tops, and shooting coins and glass balls whilst they were in mid air proved to be the show’s much needed revival. It also proved, for the first time in Oakley’s career, that not only was she capable of being a solo performer, but she was also capable of being the first big female star in the (very) male-dominated field of Wild Western shows. In a similar vein, Glenda Riley, author of The Life and Legacy of Annie Oakley, even suggested that Oakley’s stereotypically “feminine” attire also helped to propel her fame. Riley maintains that Oakley’s distinct Victorian-era dress “made Annie acceptable and appealing to everyone in her audience, young or old, male or female, old-fashioned or modern.” By blurring the line between what was deemed “feminine” or “masculine” in the late nineteenth century, Oakley helped to assure women that they could still be both independent and employed, yet also partake in traditional values. Unlike her male counterparts, who would opt for full buckskin outfits, or trousers, Oakley chose to wear high-necked dresses - always made by herself. Whilst the dresses were typically short, she would always ensure her legs were covered with handmade button-up socks. Further, during her time at Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show, she deepened her connection to the audiences, often “entertaining them with punch, tea, and cakes”.[11] Oakley’s niece, Fern Swartwout also noted that Oakley would “take delight” in sharing with audiences “how she packed her trunks”.[12] Being so attentive to an audience was certainly not common, but further highlights Oakley’s dedication to her cause.
Perhaps surprisingly, throughout her time as an act for Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show, Oakley’s husband remained supportive of her endeavours- as historian Virginia Scharff explains: “Frank Butler understood that [Oakley] had a kind of star quality that he didn’t want to overshadow, and he didn’t have a problem with that. He adored her.”[13] This has also been supported by Oakley, who recalls how, at one of her Buffalo Bill shows, she
asked her husband to be a prop-holder, holding the photograph of “Ducky” - a man who had asked for Oakley’s hand in marriage. Ultimately, Butler did just that whilst Oakley “sent a .22 calibre bullet through the photo.”[14] Though this wasn’t Butler’s only time on stage throughout Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show, he certainly wasn’t a frequent star. He did, however, stay present in Oakley’s career - he became her manager where he would handle the show’s finances, write articles and press releases about her work. However, it is important to note that this was not reflected in the 1946 musical Annie Get Your Gun. The musical, intended as a biopic of Oakley’s life, portrayed Butler as self-absorbed and jealous - a portrayal that may have been used intentionally to reflect the stereotypical attitudes of men (especially husbands) during the nineteenth century.
Oakley continued to amaze audiences with her tricks, including splitting cards on their edges, shooting whilst leaning backwards, or hitting targets whilst her gun was upside down. Such tricks stunned audiences and royals alike - during 1877 Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show had embarked on a tour of England as part of Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee celebrations, and Queen Victoria was so impressed with Oakley’s talents that she coined Oakley “a very clever little girl.”[15] Though this quote may read as being condescending, Oakley was a widely celebrated figure, and she was actually the highest paid entertainer of her time - something which encouraged her advocacy for equal pay in her later life. Oakley’s celebrity encounters continued to grow - in 1890 whilst on a tour in Berlin, Oakley invited the German Emperor, Freidrich Wilhelm II, to be part of her signature trick: shooting a cigarette out of somebody’s mouth. It is crucial to note that Oakley was reaching levels of fame and recognition seldom seen within Wild Western shows.
Throughout her sixteen year tenure as a performer for the Wild West Show, Oakley toured countries all over Europe, and simultaneously proved to men and women alike that women were capable of using firearms. Oakley’s performances proved especially popular with women and girls, and she utilised this popularity to prove that shooting was neither detrimental, nor too intense, to one’s womanhood. Likewise, she encouraged women to learn how to use pistols, and instructed that they could be kept discreetly within purses as protection. Notably, in 1898, with the outbreak of the Spanish-American War, Oakley wrote to American president, William McKinley, offering to train a regiment of women to fight, believing that women could contribute just as much to military efforts as men. But, this proposal was ultimately rejected, reflecting the societal norms and prevalent gender biases of the time.
By 1901, following a train accident which permanently injured Oakley’s back, Oakley had decided to retire from Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show. As a result, in an attempt to live a more quiet life, Oakley began an acting career. In 1902, she starred in The Western Girl, a play written specifically for Oakley. Here, she played the character Nancy Berry who would use pistols, rifles, and ropes to outsmart gangs of outlaws. Sadly, unlike her previous ventures, The Western Girl did not achieve significant commercial success. The play ran for a few months, and did not become a long-running hit, in part because the play’s storyline did not match the high-energy performances given by Oakley previously. In 1911, Oakley resumed her Wild Western performances by joining The Young Buffalo Show. Although critics found The Young Buffalo Show entertaining, its tenure was short and it ended in 1914. The entertainment business was seriously struggling at this time, with even Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show succumbing to financial troubles, and officially disbanding in 1913.
Late Life and Legacy
At the dawn of World War One, although Oakley was reaching her 60s, she still continued to sharpshoot, and began to advocate more stringently for women’s rights. She continued to push for equal pay, and attempted to educate women on the importance of self-defence. On top of this, she adamantly proved that she still had her sharp skills by beating new records, including successfully shooting 100 consecutive targets at the age of 62.
In 1917, she repeated her attempt to train a regiment to use guns. She wrote to the American Secretary of War, Henry L. Stimson, and offered to both fully fund and train a regiment of female volunteers to fight, as well as teach and train existing soldiers to accurately shoot. But, again, her offer was declined. The repeated decline of Oakley’s offers highlights the limitation of her influence despite her fame. Oakley’s expertise was clearly still not enough to overcome the entrenched gender bias, and this further illustrates the broader struggles for women in the twentieth century in overcoming institutionalised sexism.
Oakley continued touring until 1925, when she fell ill with pernicious anaemia - an autoimmune condition. Not long after World War I, in 1926, Oakley passed away, and her husband, Butler, also died just eighteen days later.
Although Oakley may not be a household name, her iconic abilities cannot be forgotten: she remains a poignant inspiration for women in the world of sharpshooting, which is still primarily dominated by men, and as an advocate for women’s equality and safety. Throughout her life, it is believed that she helped more than 15,000 women to use guns for self-defence, and has been recognised for such ability by both the National Cowgirl Museum and the Hall of Fame in Texas, as well as the National Women’s Hall of Fame, in 1993. Likewise, Oakley’s life has inspired a number of stories, including the 1937 film ‘Annie Oakley’, and the 1946 Broadway musical ‘Annie Get Your Gun’, which was later - in 1950 - turned into a film.
Though the image of ‘cowgirl’ and ‘sharpshooter’ has, in many ways, evolved since Oakley’s time, Oakley remains the original embodiment of what it meant to live in these roles throughout the American Frontier. Not only this, but Oakley remained an inspiration to women of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries - setting a great example of being both the breadwinner, whilst still presenting as a traditional woman.
[1] ‘Frequently Asked Questions about Annie Oakley’, Annie Oakley Center, (2024) <https://www.annieoakleycenterfoundation.com/faq.html> [27-08-24].
[2] Ibid.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Martin, Emily, ‘The True Story of Annie Oakley’, National Geographic, (2022), <https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/the-true-story-of-annie-oakley-legendary-sharpshooter> [28/08/2024].
[5] ‘Biography: Frank Butler’, PBS, (2019) <https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/oakley-butler/> [06/08/2024].
[6] Ibid.
[7]Soluri, John, ‘Reviewed Work: Farming across Borders: A Transnational History of the North American West. Connecting the Greater West Series Sterling Evans’, Western Historical Quarterly, Vol. 49, No. 4, P. 491, JSTOR <https://www.jstor.org/stable/26783083> [28/08/2024]
[8] Ibid
[9] Reece, Amy, ‘Annie Oakley, Calamity Jane, and the Myth of the West’, Digital Repository, (2011) <https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1065&context=hist_etds>, P. 57 [29/08/2024]
[10]Ibid.
[11] Ibid, P.56
[12] Ibid.
[13] Annie Oakley, directed by Riva Freifeld, (WGBH Educational Foundation, 2006), online film recording, Amazon <https://www.amazon.com/American-Experience-Annie-Oakley-PBS/product-reviews/B00UGQ9AO> [29/08/2024].
[14] Buffalo Bill Centre for the Wild West, Annie Oakley in her Own Words, online video recording, YouTube,18th May 2012, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25HMhne2nj4> [30/08/2024]
[15] Johnston, Winifred, ‘Passing of the Wild West: A Chapter in the History of American Entertainment’, Southwest Review, Vol. 21, No. 1, pp. 35-40. JSTOR <https://www.jstor.org/stable/43462218> [30/08/2024].
Further Reading
‘Biography: Frank Butler’, PBS, (2019) <https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/oakley-butler/> [06/08/2024].
‘Annie Oakley: Biography’, Sky History, (2024) <https://www.history.co.uk/biographies/annie-oakley> [07/08/2024].
Hunt, Kirstin, ‘How Annie Oakley Defined the Cinema Cowgirl’, Daily JStor, (2020) <https://daily.jstor.org/how-annie-oakley-defined-the-cinema-cowgirl/> [07/08/2024].
McGrath, Ann, ‘Being Annie Oakley: Modern Girls, New World Woman’, Frontiers: A Journal of Women’s Studies, Vol. 28, No.1, pp. 203 - 231. JSTOR, <https://www.jstor.org/stable/40071957> [08/08/24].
Riley, Glenda, ‘Life and Legacy of Annie Oakley’, First Edition, University of Oklahoma Press, Oklahoma: 2002.
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