Annie Oakley

Annie Oakley
Born	Phoebe Ann Mosey August 13, 1860(1860-08-13) near Willowdell (formerly Woodland),[1] Ohio, United States
Died	November 3, 1926 (aged 66) Greenville, Ohio
Spouse(s)	Francis E. Butler (1850–1926) (m. 1882–1926) «start: (1882)–end+1: (1927)»"Marriage: Francis E. Butler (1850–1926) to Annie Oakley" Location: (linkback:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annie_Oakley)
Parents	Susan Wise (1830-1908) Jacob Mosey (1799-1866)

Annie Oakley (born Phoebe Ann Mosey ^[2][3][4] August 13, 1860 – November 3, 1926) was an American sharpshooter and exhibition shooter. Oakley's amazing talent^[5] and timely rise to fame^[6] led to a starring role in Buffalo Bill's Wild West show, which propelled her to become the first American female superstar.

Using a .22 caliber rifle at 90 feet (27 m), Oakley reputedly could split a playing card edge-on and put five or six more holes in it before it touched the ground.^[7]

Early life

According to the Annie Oakley Foundation, she was born in "a cabin less than two miles northwest of Woodland,^[1] now Willowdell, in Darke County", a rural western border county of Ohio.^[8] The village of North Star has a road sign stating it is near her place of birth.^[9] Her birthplace log cabin site is about five miles eastward of North Star.^[10] There is a stone-mounted plaque in the vicinity of the cabin site, which was placed by the Annie Oakley Committee in 1981, 121 years after her birth.^[11] The committee misspelled her birth surname on the cast bronze plaque, incorrectly ending in an "s" instead of "y".^[4]

Annie's parents were Quakers from Hollidaysburg, Blair County, Pennsylvania: Susan Wise, age 18,^[12] and Jacob Mosey, age 49,^[2] married in 1848.^[13] A fire burned down their tavern in Hollidaysburg, so they moved to a rented farm (later purchased with a mortgage) in Patterson Township, Darke County. The move occurred sometime between sister Elizabeth's Hollidaysburg birth in 1855, and sister Sarah Ellen's Darke County birth in 1857.

Born in 1860, Annie was the sixth of Jacob and Susan's eight children.^[14] Her father, who had fought in the War of 1812, died in 1866 at age 67, from pneumonia and overexposure in freezing weather. Her mother married Daniel Brumbaugh,^[12] had a ninth child, Emily,^[15] and was widowed a second time.

When Annie was eight or nine years old, she was put in the care of the superintendent of the county poor farm, where she learned to sew and decorate. She spent some time in near-slavery for a local family where she endured mental and physical abuse (Annie referred to them as "the wolves") ^[16].^{[citation needed]} When she reunited with her family at age 13 or 14, her mother had married a third time, to Joseph Shaw^[12] after 1868.

Because of poverty following the death of her father, Annie did not regularly attend school. Later she received some additional education. Apparently, she could not spell her family's name, since she later rendered it ending in "ee". Her family's surname, "Mosey", ending in "y", appears on her father's gravestone^[17] and in his military record; it is the official spelling by the Annie Oakley Foundation maintained by her living relatives.^[4][18]

Annie began hunting at age nine to support her siblings and her widowed mother. She sold the hunting game for money to locals in Greenville, as well as restaurants and hotels in southern Ohio. Her skill eventually paid off the mortgage on her mother's farm when Annie was 15.^[19]

Debut and marriage

Wild West show poster

Annie Oakley performing at an amateur circus in Nutley, New Jersey, in 1894, to raise funds for the Red Cross

Oakley circa 1899

Oakley soon became well known throughout the region. During the spring of 1881, the Baughman and Butler shooting act was being performed in Cincinnati. Traveling show marksman and former dog trainer Francis E. Butler (1850–1926), an Irish immigrant,^[20] placed a $100 bet per side (roughly equivalent to modern US$2,000) with Cincinnati hotel owner Jack Frost, that Butler, age 31, could beat any local fancy shooter. The hotelier arranged a shooting match with Oakley, age 21, to be held in ten days in a small town near Greenville, Ohio. Butler later said it was "18 miles from the nearest [train] station"^[21] (about the distance from Greenville to North Star). After missing his 25th shot, Butler lost the match and the bet — a serendipitous irony that led him to become a well-known winner in backstage life. Butler began courting Oakley, and they married on June 20, 1882.^[21]

Career and touring

Oakley and Butler lived in Cincinnati, Ohio, for a time, and she is believed to have taken her stage name from the city's neighborhood of Oakley, where they resided. At first, Oakley was Butler's assistant in his travelling show. Later, Butler realized that Oakley was more talented and unusual, so he became her assistant and business manager. Their personal and business success in handling celebrity is considered a model show business relationship even after more than a century.^{[citation needed]}

They joined Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show in 1885. At 5 feet (1.52 m) 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 Buffalo Bill's show engagement, Oakley experienced a tense professional rivalry with rifle sharpshooter Lillian Smith. Smith promoted herself as younger and therefore more billable than Oakley. Oakley temporarily left the Buffalo Bill's show but returned after Smith departed.

Oakley had initially responded to the show's age rivalry by removing six years from her promoted age. She could not remove any more years without making it seem that she was born out of wedlock. As it was, her promoted age led to perennial wrong calculations of her true age and the dates for some of her biographical events. For example, the 1881 spring shooting match with Butler occurred when she was a 21-year-old adult. However, that event is widely reported as occurring six years earlier in the fall, which also suggests a mythical teen romance with Butler.

In Europe, she performed for Queen Victoria, and other crowned heads of state. Oakley had such good aim that, at his request, she knocked the ashes off a cigarette held by the Prince of Prussia, the future Kaiser Wilhelm II.^[22] The Annie Oakley Foundation suggests that she was not the source of a widely-repeated sarcasm related to the event, "Some uncharitable people later ventured that if Annie would have shot Wilhelm and not his cigarette, she could have prevented World War I."^[22]

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."^[23] 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" where Oakley was a major star. The same year that McKinley was fatally shot by an assassin, 1901, Oakley was also badly injured in a railway crash, but she fully recovered after temporary paralysis and five spinal operations. She left the Buffalo Bill show and in 1902 began a quieter acting career in a stage play written especially for her, The Western Girl. Oakley played the role of Nancy Berry and used a pistol, rifle and rope to outsmart a group of outlaws ^[24] Following her injury and change of career, it only added to her legend that her shooting expertise continued to increase into her 60s.

Throughout her career, it is believed that Oakley taught upwards of 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 ^[25]

Libel cases

In 1903, sensational cocaine prohibition stories were selling well. The 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". The original Annie Oakley spent much of the next six years winning 54 of 55 libel lawsuits against newspapers. She collected less in judgments than were her legal expenses, but to her, a restored reputation justified the loss of time and money.^[26]

Most of the newspapers that printed the story had relied on the Hearst article, and upon learning of the libelous error they immediately retracted the false story with apologies. Hearst, however, tried to avoid paying the anticipated court judgments of $20,000 ($300,000, adjusted for inflation in 2008 dollars) by sending an investigator to Darke County with the intent of collecting reputation-smearing gossip from Oakley's past. The investigator found nothing.

Later years and death

Oakley continued to set records into her 60s, and she also engaged in extensive, albeit quiet, philanthropy for women's rights and other causes, including the support of specific young women that she knew. She embarked on a comeback and intended to star in a feature-length silent movie. In a 1922 shooting contest in Pinehurst, North Carolina, sixty-two-year-old Oakley hit 100 clay targets from 16 yards (15 m).^[27]

In late 1922, Oakley and Butler suffered a debilitating automobile accident that forced her to wear a steel brace on her right leg. Yet after a year and a half of recovery, she again performed and set records in 1924.^[28]

Her health declined in 1925 and she died of pernicious anemia in Greenville, Ohio at the age of sixty-six in 1926.^[29][30] She was buried in Brock Cemetery in Greenville, Ohio.^[31] Butler was so crushed by her death that he stopped eating.^{[citation needed]} He died just 18 days later.

After her death, her incomplete autobiography was given to Fred Stone, the stage comedian.^[32]

After her death it was discovered that her entire fortune had been spent on her family and her charities.^{[citation needed]}

The Little Sure Shot of the Wild West

Annie Oakley's 1894 "exhibition of rifle shooting at glass balls, etc", in an Edison Kinetoscope movie

In 1894, Oakley and Butler performed in Edison's Kinetoscope film, The "Little Sure Shot" of the "Wild West," exhibition of rifle shooting at glass balls, etc.^[33] Filmed November 1, 1894, in Edison's Black Maria studio by William Heise (0:21 at 30 frame/s; 39 ft.),^[34] it was about the 11th film made after commercial showings began on April 14, 1894.^[35]

Oakley's early movie star opportunity followed from Buffalo Bill and Thomas Edison's friendship, which developed after Edison personally built for the Wild West Show, what in the 1890s was the world's largest electrical power plant.^[28] Buffalo Bill and fifteen of his show Indians appeared in two Kinetoscopes filmed September 24, 1894.^[36][37]

Representations on stage and screen

• In 1935, Barbara Stanwyck played Oakley in a highly fictionalized film called Annie Oakley.
• The 1946 Broadway musical Annie Get Your Gun is very loosely based on her life. The original stage production starred Ethel Merman, who also starred in the 1966 revival. A 1950 film version starred Betty Hutton. Some years after headlining the 1948 national tour, Mary Martin returned to the role for a 1957 NBC television special.
• From 1954 to 1956, Gail Davis played Oakley in the Annie Oakley television series.
• A highly-fictionalised Oakley appears in the 1966 comedy film Carry On Cowboy. This version of Oakley had a father who was sheriff of the fictitious Stodge City, and travelled out west to kill her father's murderer, and eventually fell in love with the inept Englishman, Marshal P. Knutt (Jim Dale). Oakley was played by Angela Douglas.
• In 1976, Geraldine Chaplin played Oakley in Buffalo Bill and the Indians with John Considine as Frank Butler.
• In 1982, Diane Civita played Oakley, opposite Richard Donner as Bill Cody, in an episode of Voyagers!, where, during Cody's performances for Queen Victoria, Oakley engaged in a marksmanship contest with a Russian duke.
• In 1982, the British rock band Squeeze released a song called 'Annie Get Your Gun.'
• In 1985, Jamie Lee Curtis portrayed her in the "Annie Oakley" episode of the children's video series Shelley Duvall's Tall Tales and Legends.
• In 1996, Reba McEntire portrayed Annie in Buffalo Girls alongside Anjelica Huston, Melanie Griffith and Tom Wopat.
• In 1999, Annie Get Your Gun was revived on Broadway with Bernadette Peters in the title role. Susan Lucci assumed the role when Peters took a vacation from the show, Cheryl Ladd assumed the role from Peters and was followed by Reba McEntire and Crystal Bernard.
• In 2004, Elizabeth Berridge played Annie Oakley in the Touchstone Pictures film Hidalgo.
• In 2006, an episode of PBS's American Experience documented Oakley's life.
• In 2008, Neil deGrasse Tyson focused on Oakley on an episode of his PBS show.
• In 2009, the band Watchout! There's Ghosts released a song called Don't Shoot Me Annie Oakley.
• In 2009, Murdoch Mysteries featured Oakley and Buffalo Bill touring Toronto.

See also

• Calamity Jane
• Belle Starr
• Lillian Smith
• History of women in the military
• Buffalo Bill
• The 39 Clues

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Annie Oakley

• Annie Oakley - Biography by Dorchester County Public Library, Cambridge, MD
• "Tall Tales". Web.archive.org. http://web.archive.org/web/20021015053658/www.ormiston.com/annieoakley/tales.html. Retrieved 2009-10-15. 
• Annie Oakley Foundation's archived page "Tall Tales and the Truth"
• Annie Oakley Foundation's current web site "Mosey" research page
• Annie Oakley Research links - Virtual Museum of History
• Annie Oakley biography (Women in History)
• American Experience | Annie Oakley | People & Events | PBS
• "Little Miss Sure Shot" - The Saga of Annie Oakley
• Short bio, pictures and the 1894 edison motion picture of Annie Oakley.
• Annie Oakley at the Buffalo Bill Historical Center, Cody, Wyoming
• Scanned 1898 letter from Anne Oakley to President McKinley advocating the use of women in military combat (from the National Archives and Records Administration).
• Annie Oakley at Find a Grave