How Wild West Sharpshooter Annie Oakley Made It in a Man’s World

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Here's Our American Stories contributor, Faith Buchanan, to tell the story of Annie Oakley. Late in 1865, a fierce blizzard swept into western Ohio. Phoebe Ann Moses, the fifth surviving child from a poor Quaker farming family, waited for her beloved father to walk home from the mill, 15 miles away.

It wasn't until midnight when Jacob Moses finally returned. His hands were frozen solid, his speech gone. He never recovered and died a few months later. Phoebe Ann, or Annie, was just five years old. The family soon lost the farm, bills piled up, they were destitute. To ease the burden, Annie's mother Susan had to sell the family farm and pet cow just to pay the medical and funeral bills.

Here's grand niece of Annie Oakley, Bess Edwards. Annie stepped in and she saved the family. They were hungry.

Rather than be hungry, what are you going to do? If you have a talent like hers, you make use of it just as fast as you can, and she did. The eight-year-old Annie took it upon herself to provide food for her family, who now leased a smaller farm. She reached for her deceased father's Kentucky rifle hanging above the fireplace, rested the barrel on the porch railing, and shot her first small gang, a squirrel.

I was eight years old when I took my first shot, and I still consider it one of the best shots I ever made, Annie Oakley. In spite of Annie's efforts, her family's financial situation worsened, forcing her mother to place the children with friends and neighbors. Ten-year-old Annie moved into a shelter for the destitute. Here she learned to sew and embroider, a skill she would practice for the rest of her life when she wasn't shooting. Soon she was hired out to work as a live-in helper for a family in a neighboring county.

Here's Old West historian Virginia Scharf, Annie Oakley biographer Shole Kasper, and Paul Fies, former senior curator at the Buffalo Bill Historical Center in Cody, Wyoming. Everyone thought this was going to be an improvement, but it turned out to be an absolutely nightmarish situation. She never mentioned their name again in the rest of her life. She referred to them as the wolves. They locked her in closets.

They worked her half to death. One day the farmer's wife, Mrs. Wolf, throws her out in the snow because she fell asleep while she was doing some darning. Suddenly the she-wolf struck me across the ears, threw me out into the deep snow, and locked the door. I had no shoes on. I was slowly freezing to death.

So I got down on my knees, looked toward God's clear sky, and tried to pray. But my lips were frozen stiff, and there was no sound. They told her folks, in fact, they told her mother that she didn't want to go home. And they told her that her mother didn't want her back. After three miserable years, in 1872, 12-year-old Annie Moses could bear it no more. She ran away, flipping into a crowded railroad car, and escaped home to her mother in Greenville, Ohio.

Susan Moses had remarried, but the family was still desperately poor, and a mortgage loomed over their heads. Instead of going to school, Annie taught herself to shoot. With her father's old cap and ball rifle, she headed for the woods to hunt. There, in what she called the fairy places, she began her lifelong love for the great outdoors. Annie preferred moving targets to sitting ones.

It gave them a fair chance, she'd reasoned, and made me quick of eye and hand. Soon she was selling hampers of quail to Katzenberger's General Store in Greenville. The young Annie was now the family breadwinner, earning a living with her gun. Here's historian Mary Stang. She was a market hunter, and turning a very nice profit.

Certainly not something that was at all appropriate for a woman to be doing in that time and place. Eventually she saved up enough money to pay off the $200 mortgage on the family farm, and her prowess with a shotgun was becoming known around Greenville. Annie wasn't just good for a girl, she was good for anybody. Here's Annie Oakley biographer Glenda Riley. Annie was exceptionally good.

Her father had given her instructions. He was the one that told her, always shoot game through the head so that you didn't spoil the meat. By her late teens, Annie had won so many turkey shoots that she was barred from entering them. In the 1870s, shooting well was an important skill for a man, and shooting contests were a favorite spectator sport. Sharpshooters traveled the country, betting on their ability to perform feats of marksmanship and challenging all comers. Here's firearms historian R.L.

Wilson. Shooting was of such immense popularity that there were professionals. Doc Carver, evil spirit of the plains is what he was called. Captain Bogardus, who eventually had four sons who traveled with him, and people were flocking to see shooters like this. One such shooter was Frank Butler, an Irish immigrant in his mid-20s who was starting to make a name for himself on the vaudeville circuit.

He was passing through southern Ohio one fall, claiming he could outshoot anyone around. And you've been listening to Faith Buchanan tell one heck of a story about Annie Oakley. Her dire circumstances would lead to something positive. That suffering would lead to a talent in the discovery of one.

She would have to get home, escaping the wolves, to provide for her own by becoming a sharpshooter, in essence. And in the end, so good that she was banned from turkey hunts. In southern Ohio, when we come back, more of the Annie Oakley story here on Our American Stories. Here at Our American Stories, we bring you inspiring stories of history, sports, business, faith, and love. Stories from a great and beautiful country that need to be told.

But we can't do it without you. Our stories are free to listen to, but they're not free to make. If you love our stories and America like we do, please go to OurAmericanStories.com and click the donate button. Give a little. Give a lot. Help us keep the great American stories coming.

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Hi, this is Lee Habib here. Do you wake up every morning dreading that first step out of bed because of foot pain? I know I used to. Living with plantar fasciitis felt like a constant battle. Then I tried PowerStep, the number one podiatrist recommended insoles clinically proven to relieve pain. I was skeptical at first, but from the moment I put them in my shoes and sneakers, I felt the difference. Support and comfort exactly where I needed it and when I needed it, especially those really long walks I take each day with my wife. My foot pain vanished and even my back and knee pain was eased. Now I can go through my day pain-free. Go to PowerStep dot com slash O-A-S and use code O-A-S for 15% off your first order.

That's PowerStep dot com slash O-A-S and use code O-A-S for 15% off your first order. How do we go about supporting government leaders when we may not want to vote for or support any of them? Do babies who die in the womb go to heaven? Are there only certain reasons in the Bible that are valid for divorce? Is IVF an option for Christian couples? I'm Pastor Mike Novotny and these are just some of the topics I tackle in my new podcast, Taboo Questions with Pastor Mike Novotny. I answer questions for people just like you on essential topics that are not often discussed in church.

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Visit purina.com slash purple to get involved. And we return to our American stories and the story of Annie Oakley. Frank Butler was a world-class shooter we'd just heard about him and was passing through southern Ohio claiming he could outshoot anybody. Let's return to Faith Buchanan for what Frank Butler soon learns. Here again is Oakley biographer Cheryl Casper. Frank is staying in a hotel in Cincinnati and he starts talking with a bunch of farmers. The farmers say, hey, we have someone in our county who's a really good shot and we're going to bet 100 bucks that this person can beat you. Here again is R.L.

Wilson, Paul Feas and Virginia Scharf. Frank Butler, this already professional shootist, shows up for this match with hundreds of people watching. And who is it that comes as his opponent but a 15-year-old girl who is only five feet tall and weighed 100 pounds? I almost dropped dead when a little slim girl in short dresses stepped out to the mark with me. I was a beaten man the moment she appeared.

Right then and there I decided if I could get that girl, I would do it. Frank Butler, 1924. They shot evenly for 25, for 24 birds and on the 25th bird he missed. But he was a very gracious loser. He thanked her for the match, complimented her on her skill and then courted her for a year. He was in his 20s when they met.

She was 15 and yet within a year they were married. He made himself appear safe to her. He clearly admired her. He sparked and courted her as few of us have ever been sparked or courted and every one of us would like to be by someone. And she was lucky to find him and I think he knew he was lucky to find her. For the next six years, however, while Butler and his shooting partner John Graham performed on the vaudeville circuit, Annie stayed in the background.

That was about to change. The story is that Butler's partner, a fellow named Graham, was ill and she was called up as a member of the audience and was so obviously good at it and so charming and such a novelty to the audience that Graham was never heard of again. At some time she adopted the name Oakley as a stage name and nobody knows why and Butler and Oakley became a shooting sensation. From that day to this, I have not competed with her in public shooting.

She outclassed me. Frank Butler, 1925. When the shooting team of Butler and Oakley hit the road, traveling entertainment was in its heyday. Circuses, theater companies, and vaudeville acts traveled the country, playing venues from outdoor arenas to smoky saloons.

For Frank and Annie, it was an exhausting life of noisy train rides, seedy hotels, and one-night stands. Their shooting act might be sandwiched in between a bawdy songstress and a scantily clad acrobat. Here's theater historian Don Wilmeth. Variety was a largely male-oriented form of entertainment. There was a great deal of double entendre in comedy. There were suggestive lyrics in songs and there was a good deal of semi-nudity.

The acts could be a tad salacious. It was the Victorian age. Annie Oakley, the Christian girl from Ohio, feared being thought a loose woman. She resolved to set herself apart, both in manner and in dress. She began wearing an outfit that completely covered her body, a calf-length skirt, long sleeves and leggings, and a hat that sparkled with a silver star. Her look became her trademark, and this costume, though distinctive and eye-catching, was as modest as Annie's attitude towards her talent.

Here's old West historians Joy Casson and Roger McGrath. She made her own costumes that was very important to her. It was part of her desire to control her self-presentation. She could move easily in them, and yet she looked respectable.

She looked childlike. Women in the West were just like the men—enterprising, courageous, bold, adventurous, intelligent. The West really selected and filtered people. The women had to be all those things the men were in spades, because they were doing most of the things the men were, but lacked the same degree of physical prowess. The women in the West were simply the very best America had to offer, and what better example of that than Annie Oakley? Frank soon realized that Annie was the main attraction of Butler and Oakley.

In a remarkable reversal of 19th-century roles, Frank Butler became Annie Oakley's assistant. I think Frank Butler understood that she had a kind of star quality that he didn't want to overshadow, and Frank Butler didn't have a problem with that. I think he adored her. I think he also was a savvy businessman who understood that she was pretty, she was ladylike, she was petite. She would do what needed to be done to make that rise to the top, and he didn't want to get in her way.

As a matter of fact, he understood that for the two of them, the best thing possible was to let her take the lead. In 1884, Butler and Oakley landed a 40-week job with Sells Brothers Circus, one of the biggest traveling shows in the country. Finally, they had steady work with a clean, family-oriented show. But circus life was hard, and the pay unreliable. When the season ended in New Orleans that December, it looked as if Frank and Annie would have to go back to a life of one-night stands and unsavory characters. The circus season is ending the very week that Buffalo Bill's Wild West comes to New Orleans.

It's like, wow, the circus is ending, we need a job, so they ask Cody if they can come on with his show. To Annie, it was a dream job. Buffalo Bill's Wild West show was a lavish historical pageant, part melodrama, part circus, and part rodeo. And it featured the finest performers in the country. It offered a taste of the life on the old frontier, to an America that was rapidly industrializing. In the crowded urban centers of the East, people flocked to Buffalo Bill's show, eager for a glimpse of the Wild West. This spectacle was the forerunner of Western movies and TV programs. The whole world was fascinated with the West. Audiences saw the real stagecoach, they saw real soldiers, they saw real Indians and cowboys.

There were horses, there were steer, there were live buffalo. It was into this roiling microcosm of the Wild West that Annie Oakley, the little girl from Ohio, first stepped in April 1885. Cody placed her low on the bill, but she soon became an audience favorite. Her 10-minute program combined Frank's vaudeville experience with her talents as a sharpshooter, athlete, and actress. The result distinguished her from other shooters. Annie didn't just aim a gun and fire, she performed. Here again is Cheryl Casper. Miss Annie Oakley!

She tripped into the arena, she didn't walk in, she blew kisses, she waved. She was like animated, alive, like this sweet person but with this big bang gun. And you've been listening to Our American Stories contributor Faith Buchanan and others tell the story of Annie Oakley. When we come back, more of the story of Annie Oakley on Our American Stories. Sent away, when she was very young she sold and slayed, till she could go back home and her wise mom married another man, she had no schooling, she couldn't spell her name. Sharpshooter, daughter and wife, she could split cards from 89 feet. Beautiful Annie Oakley, little shore shot of the wild glass.

Won't you take me with you when you go, when you go. Black Friday is coming and for the adults in your life who love the coolest toys, well there's something for them this year too. Bartesian is the premier craft cocktail maker that automatically makes more than 60 seasonal and classic cocktails, each in under 30 seconds at the push of a button. And right now, Bartesian is having a huge site wide sale. You can get $100 off any cocktail maker or cocktail maker bundle when you spend $400 or more. So if the cocktail lover in your life has been good this year or the right kind of bad, get them Bartesian. At the push of a button, make bar quality cosmopolitans, martinis, manhattans and more. All in just 30 seconds. All for $100 off.

Amazing toys aren't just for kids. Get $100 off a cocktail maker when you spend $400 through Cyber Monday. Visit Bartesian.com slash cocktail. That's B-A-R-T-E-S-I-A-N.com slash cocktail.

Hi, this is Lee Habib here. Do you wake up every morning dreading that first step out of bed because of foot pain? I know I used to. Living with plantar fasciitis felt like a constant battle. Then I tried Power Step, the number one podiatrist recommended insoles clinically proven to relieve pain. I was skeptical at first, but from the moment I put them in my shoes and sneakers, I felt the difference. Support and comfort exactly where I needed it and when I needed it. Especially those really long walks I take each day with my wife. My foot pain vanished and even my back and knee pain was eased. Now I can go through my day pain-free. Go to PowerStep.com slash O-A-S and use code O-A-S for 15% off your first order.

That's PowerStep.com slash O-A-S and use code O-A-S for 15% off your first order. Ever had questions for your pastor but felt awkward or embarrassed to ask them? Maybe questions about sex or politics or IVF or mental illness? There's a podcast for that. I'm Pastor Mike Novotny with Time of Grace Ministry and in my new podcast, Taboo Questions with Pastor Mike Novotny, I answer questions from people just like you. I open up the Bible to give answers that point people back to the truth and especially to Jesus.

To listen, just search, Taboo Questions with Pastor Mike. Welcome to the world of Bose Ultra Open Earbuds, the perfect gift for the music lover in your life. They're designed to give you complete openness to your surroundings while providing rich, private sound. Want to hear what that sounds like? Picture this, a walk on a sunny winter day. You can hear the satisfying crunch of snow beneath your feet and your favorite holiday song playing. That's the magic we're talking about. Hear life and music at the same time. Bose Ultra Open Earbuds.

Own the gift game and check out bows.com slash iHeart to shop now. Just a few years ago, only 3% of domestic violence shelters accepted pets, meaning many abuse survivors had to choose between staying in a difficult situation for their pet or leaving their pet behind. One in three women and one in four men experienced domestic abuse in their lifetime, and nearly half of survivors delay leaving because they can't bring their pets with them. Purina believes in the healing power of pets, particularly for survivors of abuse. They believe pets and people are better together, which is one of the many reasons they started the Purple Leash Project. Through the Purple Leash Project, Purina is helping break down one of the many barriers abuse survivors face. The lack of pet friendly domestic violence shelters. Purina has helped increase the amount of pet friendly shelters across the country from 3% to nearly 20% through the Purple Leash Project. With more pet friendly domestic violence shelters, survivors and their pets can escape and heal together.

Visit purina.com slash purple to get involved. Sharpshooter, daughter and wife, she could split cars from 89 feet. Beautiful. And we continue with our American stories and our story about Annie Oakley. When we left off, Annie had earned her way to top billing for Buffalo Bill's Wild West show. Let's continue with this remarkable story. Here again is Cheryl Casper, R.L.

Wilson and Paul Feas. She starts off slow, one ball, two balls. Glass balls, which when they're hit, they explode and feathers fly out. Frank would toss up one and then two at a time and then three at a time. Then Annie Oakley would toss them up herself. She'd toss two or three or four target balls in the air, grab a shotgun, shoot two, grab another, shoot two more. And she could hit all three before any one of them would reach the ground. Then she'd go to six. Her act gets faster and faster and faster and faster until, you know, it's just like boom, boom.

Things are just being broken all around. She could shoot with her left hand, with her right hand. She like turns her gun upside down or sideways or sighting in the mirror. One of her favorite tricks was to have Frank hold a playing card up and she could either shoot through the heart when it was flat against her or if it was held sideways, she could split the card in two, which is a pretty amazing shot. Occasionally she'd miss a shot on purpose and then she'd kind of pout and this was part of the act because she could always hit the target.

She was somebody who never missed. I think it's an innate skill. She said, you know, nobody ever taught me to shoot.

I think it was just a love of a gun was just born in me. It was an instinct and a skill and an ability that only person to have phenomenal vision, have a wonderful sense of timing, who have hand-to-eye coordination, who have good balance and who are really very athletic because a really good shot has to be a really good athlete. Once Annie's act started getting rave reviews, Buffalo Bill Cody quickly moved her to the top of the bill.

That season, 150,000 people in 40 cities across America saw something entirely new. A woman who could shoot as well as any man while conveying a youthful innocence. That, whether Annie realized it or not, was sexy.

Here's Old West historian, Elliott West. She was this really remarkable, remarkable shot. What makes her especially interesting is that she was able to combine that with an image, with a kind of a vision of American womanhood that was provocative but that many people felt comfortable with. She handles a shotgun with an easy familiarity that causes the men to marvel and the women to assume airs of contented superiority. Springfield, Massachusetts, Republican, 1897. She had some sort of magnetism that can only come from within.

In private, she was quiet and reserved. But in public, she could reach the masses. Annie Oakley's celebrity grew when the Wild West spent the summer of 1886 in an arena on Staten Island. Half a million people sailed past the new Statue of Liberty, then rode on special trains straight to the Wild West. It was the most popular attraction ever seen in New York, and Annie was now becoming as famous as Buffalo Bill himself.

Here's historian, Donald Fixico. When Sitting Bull first saw she had these amazing abilities to handle a rifle in her keen eyesight, then obviously she had some endowed power of some sort that he recognized immediately. When Indian people look at such individuals that have been empowered like that, then we have the greatest respect. Sitting Bull christened his new daughter Little Sure Shot. For a time, he toured with Annie in Buffalo Bill's show, but the great chief soon left, saying he had grown sick of the noises and the multitudes of men. When Buffalo Bill's Wild West opened in Madison Square Garden in the fall of 1886, Little Sure Shot became the darling of Manhattan. She performed before 6,000 people, many in evening dress. The mistreated, half-starved little girl from Ohio had become an icon of the American West.

Here again is Virginia Scharf. There was probably never a woman in the history of the United States who was better equipped to take up the challenge of creating a legend, of creating a myth of the Western woman, and then embodying that myth with the kind of ladylike demeanor that would make her acceptable. It is a remarkable creation in American legend. In March 1887, Cody's Wild West troops sailed from New York Harbor, bound for London, to perform at Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee. Their ship was a veritable Noah's Ark. The hold was packed with horses, buffalo, elk, and mules.

Dozens of American Indians huddled together bracing for the first ocean voyage of their lives. Clustered in the bow were Buffalo Bill, Annie, and Frank Butler. But also, Cody's new discovery, 15-year-old Lillian Smith, was an abrupt shooting sensation from California. Here again is R.L.

Wilson. Lillian Smith was an expert with a rifle, so much so that Cody himself had said he would pay $10,000 to anybody who beat Lillian Smith at rifle shooting. She and Annie couldn't have been more different. Whereas Annie was modest, ladylike, and reserved, Lillian flaunted her ample figure and liked to brag.

But before they reached London, Lillian had been boasting. Now that I'm with the Wild West, Annie Oakley is done for. Lillian Smith tended to speak very coarsely, and she was kind of rakish. She liked to hang around with the cowboys. And she had this bodice that said, Champion Rifleshot of the World. It was clear that the Wild West wouldn't be big enough for the both of them.

Here's Paul Feas. To Annie Oakley, life was a battle. She uses those terms, the battle of life. It wasn't something that you skated through easily.

It's something you went out and did constant battle. Just about everything she did, she felt she had to work harder than anybody to accomplish. On May 9, 1887, when the Wild West show opened in London, Oakley and Smith were given equal billing. 10,000 eager spectators clamored to get in. In attendance were leading British intellectuals, such as playwright Oscar Wilde, and many of the crowned heads of Europe.

Here again is Elliott West. The English were fascinated by America as a place where you could escape the traps of the modern industrial world. They saw America as a place of wide open spaces, a place of the free individual in the wilderness. And I think Cody's Wild West show and Annie Oakley herself spoke to that mixed appeal of America to the English. And you've been listening to one heck of a story about Annie Oakley, the real story, the story behind the story of that character in Annie Get Your Gun. By the way, go to YouTube and type in Annie Oakley and glass balls, and you will see her doing that. It is miraculous what she did it, but more importantly, how she did it, along with Frank Butler, the idea that she would purposely miss now and then.

Absolutely brilliant. And then just imagine this show coming to Madison Square Garden. First, New York City, where, my goodness, all those fancy city types were longing for, well, just a glimpse into this American West.

And then we hear about what happened in England. Oscar Wilde, the great literary giants, the great sophisticates, longing, looking at America as a place of wide open spaces. So much of this and more Annie Oakley did, building up that myth and then embodying it.

When we come back, more of the story of Annie Oakley here on Our American Stories. Buy any cocktail maker or cocktail maker bundle when you spend $400 or more. So, if the cocktail lover in your life has been good this year, or the right kind of bad, get them Bartesian. At the push of a button, make bar quality cosmopolitans, martinis, Manhattans, and more. All in just 30 seconds. All for 100 off.

Amazing toys aren't just for kids. Get 100 off a cocktail maker when you spend 400 through Cyber Monday. Visit bartesian.com slash cocktail.

That's B-A-R-T-E-S-I-A-N dot com slash cocktail. I felt the difference. Support and comfort exactly where I needed it and when I needed it. Especially those really long walks I take each day with my wife. My foot pain vanished and even my back and knee pain was eased. Now I can go through my day pain free. Go to PowerStep dot com slash O-A-S and use code O-A-S for 15% off your first order.

That's PowerStep dot com slash O-A-S and use code O-A-S for 15% off your first order. How do we go about supporting government leaders when we may not want to vote for or support any of them? Do babies who die in the womb go to heaven? Are there only certain reasons in the Bible that are valid for divorce? Is IVF an option for Christian couples? I'm Pastor Mike Novotny and these are just some of the topics I tackle in my new podcast, Taboo Questions with Pastor Mike Novotny. I answer questions for people just like you on essential topics that are not often discussed in church.

To listen, just search Taboo Questions with Pastor Mike. Welcome to the world of Bose Ultra Open Earbuds, the perfect gift for the music lover in your life. They're designed to give you complete openness to your surroundings while providing rich, private sound. Want to hear what that sounds like? Picture this, a walk on a sunny winter day. You can hear the satisfying crunch of snow beneath your feet and your favorite holiday song playing.

That's the magic we're talking about. Hear life and music at the same time. Bose Ultra Open Earbuds. Own the gift game and check out Bose.com slash iHeart to shop now. Bose Ultra Open Earbuds. Own the gift game and check out Bose.com slash iHeart to shop now. Bose Ultra Open Earbuds.

Own the gift game and check out Bose.com slash iHeart to shop now. Just a few years ago, only 3% of domestic violence shelters accepted pets, meaning many abuse survivors had to choose between staying in a difficult situation for their pet or leaving their pet behind. One in three women and one in four men experienced domestic abuse in their lifetime, and nearly half of survivors delay leaving because they can't bring their pets with them. Purina believes in the healing power of pets, particularly for survivors of abuse. They believe pets and people are better together, which is one of the many reasons they started the Purple Leash Project. Through the Purple Leash Project, Purina is helping break down one of the many barriers abuse survivors face, the lack of pet-friendly domestic violence shelters. Purina has helped increase the amount of pet-friendly shelters across the country from 3% to nearly 20% through the Purple Leash Project. With more pet-friendly domestic violence shelters, survivors and their pets can escape and heal together.

Visit purina.com slash purple to get involved. And we continue with our American stories and with the story of Annie Oakley. We left off Queen Elizabeth's Golden Jubilee of 1887. Oscar Wilde's there, sophisticated crowd of London was there to get a glimpse at the American West.

Let's pick up where we last left off. Here again is Mary Stang and Paul Feas. Annie particularly was a figure that Europeans welcomed because on the one hand she represented the Wild Western girl. But at the same time, she was a Victorian woman who was there after all to meet the woman who created the Victorian era. All of the performers of the Wild West were invited to give a special performance for the Queen of England. The performers were presented to the Prince, Prince Edward, and his wife, Princess Alexandra. And Annie Oakley marched up and shook Alexandra's hand.

Instead of walking up and curtsying to the King-to-be, she shook Alexandra's hand. You'll have to excuse me, please, because I'm an American, and in America, ladies come first. Annie Oakley to the Prince of Wales, 1887. The most important shooting event in England was the annual rifle competition at Wimbledon, and the big-name American shooters were invited to compete. Lillian Smith was the first to arrive. She shot poorly and left in a huff. The next day, Annie Oakley appeared.

Here again is Cheryl Casper. Annie does great, and she does it with a rifle. And Lillian's supposed to be the rifle expert, and he's the shotgun shooter. So she has upstaged Lillian Smith, kind of beaten her at her own game. Annie becomes the toast of London. Some papers even said she was more popular than Cody. When a distinguished sports editor in attendance praised Annie's ladylike bearing above her shooting, she considered it the best compliment she ever received. Whether it was over Lillian or Annie's rocky relationship with Buffalo Bill, in late October, the London Evening News printed a stunning announcement. Annie Oakley would sever her connection with the Wild West voluntarily, following their final London performance that very evening.

Two years passed. Then in February 1889, much to Annie's surprise, Buffalo Bill was planning a trip to Paris and wanted her back. Here again is Cheryl Casper. They needed her. They needed her more than they thought they needed her. And so whatever rift there was is mended. And interestingly, Lillian Smith does not go to Paris.

I mean, we don't know, but it would make sense that maybe that was part of the bargain. I'll come back if Lillian goes. Over 30 million people came to the Paris Exposition of 1889. Within sight of the newly erected Eiffel Tower, Buffalo Bill's Wild West played to overflow crowds night after night. Annie Oakley was soon the talk of Paris. The French president offered her a commission in the army. When a French duke proposed marriage, Annie literally shot him down, putting a bullet through his portrait. Prince Wilhelm of Prussia was so impressed by Annie's skill that he insisted on participating in her act. He lit a cigarette from 30 paces and he shot it away. If my aim had been poorer, she later said, I might have averted the Great War. And the King of Senegal tried to buy her for 100,000 francs.

To destroy the vicious lines that devastate my country's villages, he said. In 1983, the World's Fair opened in Chicago and glowed with a new marvel, electric light. And showcased another, Thomas Edison's kinetoscope, a primitive device for viewing movies. In 1894, Edison invited Annie and Frank to his New Jersey studio for a test of his movie camera.

In dim, smoky images, Edison's camera managed to capture Annie's performance. Ironically, the invention also signaled the end of the Wild West shows. By the early 1900s, movies would become the main source of Western entertainment.

But for the rest of the 1890s, Annie Oakley and Buffalo Bill were as popular as ever. Then, at 42 years of age and from out of nowhere, on August 11, 1903, headlines screamed of her downfall. William Randolph Hearst newspapers reported that Oakley had stolen a pair of men's pants to buy cocaine.

Here's Paul Feas. Well, of course it wasn't true. She was so outraged. It so went contrary to her character that she sued against every newspaper that had run that story.

And she won in virtually all of them. But Annie Oakley never left the public eye. She used her celebrity to encourage women to be physically fit and taught thousands to shoot. Throughout her career, she appeared at gun clubs, defeating male opponents who doubted her skill, then taught their wives how to shoot. It was her personal crusade. I want to see women rise superior to that old-fashioned terror of firearms. I would like to see every woman know how to handle them, as naturally as they know how to handle babies.

Here again is Mary Stang and Cheryl Kasper. She was a very early advocate of women's use of firearms for self-defense. She believed that it was thoroughly appropriate for one woman to have a gun at her bedside. And she also argued that women, especially if they had to be out and about alone, ought to think seriously about carrying firearms for self-protection. This is when she starts sounding like a feminist. You know, I think women should have the right to protect themselves and carry a gun. And she even appears in the Cincinnati newspaper article showing how to hide your gun under an umbrella, so no one will know you have it, and then if someone attacks you, you can call it out. Annie never asked for a cent from her 15,000-plus pupils. She would be repaid, she said, if the women became shooting enthusiasts.

They did. One, a proper Bostonian, Cooley held a robber at bay until the police came to arrest him. She credited Annie for her success.

Here again is Paul Fease. She felt it was very important for women to be able to conduct themselves without fear in a man's world. And she took steps to teach them. As I have taught over 15,000 women how to shoot, I modestly feel that I have some right to speak with assurance on this subject.

Individual for individual, women shoot as well as men. Annie Oakley, 1923. Annie had once offered to lead a company of 50 lady sharpshooters to fight in World War I. But for the most part, she left politics to men. Annie Oakley didn't even think women should be allowed to vote. Although she did not espouse women's suffrage, and she didn't talk about all of the issues that were important to the so-called new women of her time, arguably Annie was living a lot of the values that her feminist sisters were arguing for.

Perhaps she didn't see herself as needing feminism to achieve what she had been able to achieve. Then, on November 3, 1926, Annie Oakley died at her home in her sleep. She was 66 years old.

Eighteen days later, Frank Butler, too, was gone. They were buried beside each other in Greenville, Ohio, not far from the fairy places she had roamed as a little girl, with rifle in hand. Will Rogers, who had visited Annie just months before her death, penned a newspaper story about his fellow Western performer that could have served as her eulogy. She is a greater character than she was a rifle shot. Annie Oakley's name, her lovable traits, her thoughtful consideration of others, will live as a mark for any woman to shoot at. Here again is Virginia Scharf. There's never been anybody like Annie Oakley. There's never been somebody who had both the power of the gun and this power of a kind of sweetness and purity that makes her safe, even though she's holding that gun in her hand. From movies, musicals, and television shows to women's self-defense classes, the legend of Annie Oakley and the life of Phoebe Ann Moses reflect the qualities that best define the American character.

And a terrific job on the production, editing, and storytelling by our own Greg Hengler and contributor, Faith Buchanan. And what a story you heard indeed. And of course, how things ended?

Well, where they started. In southern Ohio, she died on November 3, 1926 in her sleep. Her husband, Frank Butler, died a mere 18 days later. The story of Annie Oakley here on Our American Stories. Annie Oakley, where did you go? You can't leave me here alone. Wait for me, I'll follow. Wait for me, I'll follow.

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