Read The Life and Legacy of Annie Oakley Online

Authors: Glenda Riley

Tags: #Biography & Autobiography, #Women, #History, #United States, #19th Century, #test

The Life and Legacy of Annie Oakley (25 page)

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and exercise, and that women could use skill with weapons to thwart life-threatening attacks on themselves and their families.

During Annie's first season in London, a number of society ladies asked her to give them shooting lessons. Annie remembered that she held her first classes on gunmaker Charles Lancaster's hunting preserve. She charged each of her five pupils five dollars. This endeavor proved so successful that Annie placed an advertisement in the London newspapers announcing that she would give lessons in the use of pistols, rifles, and shotguns "to ladies only." For this purpose, Oakley rented a private shooting ground in London or arranged to visit pupils at their private residences or country estates. Annie soon discovered that many women proved apt pupils and demonstrated that women could learn shooting quickly and well.

When she returned to the United States, Oakley continued to give lessons and to extol the virtues of women shooters. As early as 1888, one viewer remarked that the skill of some "ladies" at rifle ranges near Boston was not only "surprising" but often surpassed the efforts of some of the "sterner sex.'' In 1893, Oakley built on such observations by issuing a statement regarding women shooters: "I do not wish to be understood to mean by this that woman should sacrifice home and family duties entirely merely for outside pleasure but that, feeling how true it is that health goes a great way towards making home life happy, no opportunity should be lost by my sex of indulging in outdoor sports, pastimes, and recreations, which are at once healthy in their tone and results and womanly in their character."

Once again Annie sounded a great deal like editor Sarah Josepha Hale, who also emphasized women's domestic duties and family responsibilities at the same time that she pressed for an expansion of women's activities. Hale had also stressed the benefits of nature and health when arguing that women should walk or ride (sidesaddle, of course), and Annie did the same. She pointed out that shooting would take women out into the beauties of nature. There they would enjoy healthy and pleasurable recreation, which would engage their minds and bodies. Moreover, women shooters would gain confidence and self-possession, two crucial qualities in daily life.

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In case this argument failed to persuade, Oakley added her second justification: a woman who understood guns could protect herself in time of danger. Annie took great exception to the common statement that "woman's only weapon is her tongue" but did admit that most women were "greatly handicapped when danger comes." They could remedy this by learning how to use a revolver, a weapon simple to operate and easy to carry.

Once she had established her arguments, Oakley continued to repeat them. In an essay written by "Gyp" around 1894, one suspects the fine hand and flowing writing style of Frank Butler but detects the thoughts of Annie Oakley. How could a woman stay behind when her husband goes hunting, the essay queried, just because of what the neighbors might think? If a woman's husband approves, then the woman should accompany him and "hang" the neighbors. Women would be healthier, and more marriages might be happier as well.

In 1897, Oakley restated her views. "I don't like bloomers or bloomer women, but I think that sport and healthful exercise make women better, healthier and happier." Also in 1897, the
New York Journal
ran a series of articles headed "Without Shooting Herself, Taught by Annie Oakley." In her newspaper instructions, Annie insisted that nervousness constituted the principal detriment to women's shooting. Since everyone expected them to shoot themselvesand the illustration accompanying the lessons pictured a female pupil wearing an unwieldy floor-length dress, a cape, and a plumed hatit is little wonder that women exhibited nervousness. Oakley, however, assured all concerned that the sport of shooting was "one of the best kind of tonics for the nerves and for the mind." She recommended that would-be shooters begin with a .22-caliber, five-pound, 20-gauge or a six-pound, 12-gauge, hammerless shotgun. Annie also encouraged women to shoot at the traps and hunt alongside their husbands and sons. She could see no reason that they should remain housebound while their menfolk enjoyed the sport.

When, in March 1897, Oakley participated in the Sportsmen's Exposition in Madison Square Garden, she used her appearance as a forum to continue her campaign for women to learn shooting. Later that year, Annie warned women shooters to ignore the

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costumes advertised in fashion plates and newspapers. Anyone who wore them to shoot could not stoop, much less aim and fire. Instead, Annie advised women to select any one of the ''natty" skirts, or gaiters and knickerbocker suits, worn for "wheeling" when they shot on a range or in the field.

The following year, as the nation tottered on the brink of war with Spain, Oakley took one of the most overtly feminist actions of her life. On April 5, 1898, she wrote to President William McKinley assuring him that she felt confident that his good judgment would guide America safely away from war. But, she continued, in case war did erupt, she was prepared "to place a Company of fifty lady sharpshooters" at his disposal. Annie guaranteed, "Every one of them will be an American and as they will furnish their own arms and ammunition will be little if any expense to the government." Annie sent this message on her special stationery, which featured a half-page letterhead declaring her "America's Representative Lady Shot" and "For eleven years, next to Buffalo Bill, the attraction with the Wild West.'' Apparently, these declarations failed to impress the president's personal secretary, who fired back his answer: he had forwarded her offer to the secretary of war.

This brush-off, coupled with public criticism from a Boston woman, must have temporarily dampened Annie's spirit for reform. In 1899, this woman chastised Oakley in an open letter to local newspapers: "Did it ever occur to you that you are wasting the best years of your life in the unwomanly occupation of shooting before the public? Take the advice of a well-wisher and renounce the gun, get married and lead a home life, and so give no reason for comments by anyone." Since Annie was already married and trying to lead a "home life" in Nutley, she probably ignored this attack.

Oakley also revealed her strength and determination by continuing to encourage women to take up shooting. In 1900, she argued that shooting need not detract from "a lady's qualities." She also remarked on the numbers of women who had taken up shooting and competed with men "on their own ground" during recent years. Then, in 1901, she declared: "Any woman who does not thoroughly enjoy tramping across the country on a clear,

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frosty morning with a good gun and a pair of dogs does not know how to enjoy life. God intended woman to be outside as well as men, and they do not know what they are missing when they stay cooped up in the house with a novel." Novel reading was an activity she deplored.

Also in 1901, a Mrs. Johnson publicly revealed her experience with guns. Although her husband had urged her to take up the sport, she had done so with great hesitation. Then, when it came her turn to shoot among a crowd of men, she felt "quite shaky." Her performance proved less than phenomenal, but she soon improved and eventually concluded that she had earned her "right to compete with the men."

Encouraged by such support, Annie Oakley stepped up her own efforts and reemphasized her dual theme. In 1902, she proclaimed that a woman who joined men in their outdoor sports approached "nearest to the highest development of the modern woman." Such a woman had learned to master all the minor difficulties that life put in the path of women and reached the peak of physical education as well. Annie further stated that "every intelligent woman should become familiar with the use of firearms" so that she could protect herself. Annie hoped that one day all women would be able to handle guns "as naturally as they handle babies."

Oakley recommended that every woman learn to use a revolver that she kept by her side, whether at home or on the streets. A woman equipped with a gun and the knowledge to use it properly, Annie said, could be courageous and self-reliant when home alone, for revolvers were "excellent life preservers." A woman who kept her gun in an accessible but safe place could easily scare off a robber or murderer or, if she wished to make him an example, maim him without killing him.

When a woman was in the streets, Annie urged during a 1904. visit to Cincinnati, she should not carry her revolver in her handbag but should have it ready at all times by concealing it within the folds of a small umbrella. Wearing a stylish, floor-length dress with full sleeves and a high collar, Annie posed for photographs showing women how to prepare themselves and their umbrellas to fend off thieves or "murderous attack." Annie

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also warned women to be "ready to shoot before the enemy shoots." Her concern was justified, for around the turn of the century, urban ills were increasing at an alarming rate while women were spending more time in city streets than formerly.

Home theft also grew at such a rapid rate that Oakley increased her attempts to get women to keep revolvers by their bedsides. A 1906 photograph shows her as a gentle, grandmotherly figurea gray-haired lady in a dark dress with a full, ruffled, long-skirtsitting by her bedside table loading a revolver to be placed in a nightstand drawer. Annie explained that she had no intention of encouraging women to make fools of themselves but that she wanted them to learn to protect themselves in an era when urban crime was on the rise.

Did Oakley's subtle subversion work? Did she successfully combine covert feminism and overt ladyhood to change people's minds about women's limitations? Perhaps the best answer appeared in 1896 when the
Philadelphia Inquirer
noted that although shooting was a strange career for a woman, no other young woman in the public eye garnered more plaudits and popularity than Annie.

Like Hale, Oakley, the true lady, attracted a wide audience with her skill and ladylike demeanor; Annie then proceeded to revise what the audience thought a woman shooter and a real lady should be. She not only pushed at the limits of women's sphere, she literally reestablished them. Even after Annie buried her mother in 1908 and thus lost an important personal supporter, she continued to work on behalf of women.

By the time Oakley retired from the Young Buffalo Show in 1913, women's choices included sport shooting as well as hunting. It was Annie's immense ability to wield, figuratively speaking, a needle with one hand and a gun with the other that endeared her to generations of Americans and allowed her to advance her causes. As shooter
and
lady, she annoyed some people but charmed a great many others, who often came to see things her way. Far from being tricked into accepting ladyhood, she used it to her advantage. She was clever not only in the arena but outside it as well.

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Chapter 5
"Girl of the Western Plains"

Stage lights glittered in the Olympic Theater and the audience applauded and cheered, but Sioux Chief Sitting Bull saw little to interest him. Ever since he had reportedly killed General George Armstrong Custer at the Battle of the Little Big Horn on June 25, 1876, he had been an object of curiosity and scorn. In recent years, he had made occasional trips to cities to slake his curiosity about white people and their way of life. Now, in March 1884, he was on a ten-day tour of St. Paul.

So far, Sitting Bull had visited a cigar factory, a millinery house, a school, and the
Pioneer Press
offices. He had also attended a couple of shows at the opera house and this evening was watching the Arlington and Fields Combination, which claimed in its advertising to have a remarkable "aggregation of talent." One would never know it from the chief's face. He sat stolidly through the Wertz brothers' acrobatics, Allie Jackson's singing, and Flynn and Sarsfield's minstrel act. Then Annie Oakley skipped onto the stage with rifle in hand, and the chief came to life.

Chief Sitting Bull understood Annie Oakley. She wore sensible clothes, handled a gun with great skill, and let nothing intimidate her. She knocked corks from bottles, snuffed out candles, and performed a variety of other stunts he had probably never seen before. Sitting Bull soon sent message after message to Annie's hotel asking to see her, but each time she refused. Oakley had a match to shoot and business to tend to. Then Sitting Bull sent sixty-five dollars and a request for her photograph. "This amused me," Annie said, "so I sent him back his money and a photograph, with my love."

Annie called on Sitting Bull the following morning. She thought him a kindly "old man," and he thought her a marvelous little woman. He was so pleased with her, Annie recalled, that he christened her "Watanya Cecilla," or "Little Sure Shot." He then

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