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Notable Birthday:
Annie Oakley
Anything you can shoot, she can shoot better...this month, our notable birthday is the inspiration for the hit movie musical, Annie Get Your Gun, Annie Oakley!
Born on August 13th 1860, Annie Oakley was born around five miles east of North Star, Ohio. Annie was the sixth of her parents' nine children, and began providing for her family after her father passed away in 1866.
She began trapping at the age of seven, before learning to shoot and hunt at the age of eight. Due to Annie’s prowess with a gun, and her selling the hunted game to locals in her village, Annie was able to pay off her family's mortgage by fifteen.
It was around this time that Annie met her future husband, Frank E. Butler. Butler had offered a $100 prize to any fancy shooter who could beat him in a match. After missing on his 25th shot, Butler lost the match. Soon afterwards, he began courting Annie and the two married, though they did not have any children.
The pair joined Buffalo Bill’s Wild West in 1885. During this time, she experienced an intense rivalry with Lillian Smith, a sharp shooter who was eleven years Oakley’s junior.
After temporarily leaving the show, Annie returned in 1889, just in time for the Paris Exposition. This tour cemented Annie’s status as America’s first female star and earned her more than any other performer in the show, other than Bill himself.
Aside from performing, Annie’s passion was self-defence for women, and she became a huge advocate for women being able to take an active role in combat and taught over 15,000 girls how to use a gun.
Later in life, Annie remained an activist for
women’s rights and other causes, and continued to support young women that she knew. In 1922, Annie and Frank were in a car accident that forced her to wear a steel brace on her right leg.
In 1925, Annie's health started to decline, until she died of pernicious anaemia, on November 3rd 1926, at the age of 66. It is believed that Frank was so grieved by her death, that it caused his own death just eighteen days later.
Annie Oakley’s legacy endures into the 21st century, thanks to Hollywood and history. Her life is captured on film, in television and even on Broadway and West End stages, as well as in museums and history books.
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