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Annie Oakley
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Quick Facts
- NAME: Annie Oakley
- OCCUPATION: Folk Hero
- BIRTH DATE: August 13, 1860
- DEATH DATE: November 03, 1926
- PLACE OF BIRTH: Darke County, Ohio
- PLACE OF DEATH: Greenville, Ohio
- Maiden Name: Phoebe Ann Moses
- AKA: Phoebe Moses
- AKA: Annie Oakley
- AKA: Phoebe Mosey
- AKA: Phoebe Ann Mosey
- AKA: Mrs. Frank Butler
- Nickname: Watanya Cecilia
- Nickname: "Little Sure Shot"
- Nickname: Watanya Cecilla
Best Known For
Annie Oakley was a renowned markswoman and star who worked for years with Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show.
Videos see all videos
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Annie Oakley - Tomboy (1:57)
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Annie Oakley - The Great War (1:36)
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Annie Oakley - Tomboy
While other girls her age were inside learning to sew, young Annie Oakley was outside shooting small game and loving it.
Annie Oakley - The Great War
During the onset of World War I, Annie Oakley wanted to help and trained the soldiers in marksmanship.
Annie Oakley - Contest of Love
Annie Oakley never thought one of her rivals, Frank Butler, would win her heart.
Annie Oakley - Unlimited Fame
As word of Annie Oakley's exploits with a rifle spread, she traveled the world and met with Kings and Queens.
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Play NowAnnie Oakley. (2013). The Biography Channel website. Retrieved 06:03, Jun 18, 2013, from http://www.biography.com/people/annie-oakley-9426141.
Annie Oakley. [Internet]. 2013. The Biography Channel website. Available from: http://www.biography.com/people/annie-oakley-9426141 [Accessed 18 Jun 2013].
"Annie Oakley." 2013. The Biography Channel website. Jun 18 2013, 06:03 http://www.biography.com/people/annie-oakley-9426141.
"Annie Oakley," The Biography Channel website, 2013, http://www.biography.com/people/annie-oakley-9426141 [accessed Jun 18, 2013].
"Annie Oakley," The Biography Channel website, http://www.biography.com/people/annie-oakley-9426141 (accessed Jun 18, 2013).
Annie Oakley [Internet]. The Biography Channel website; 2013 [cited 2013 Jun 18] Available from: http://www.biography.com/people/annie-oakley-9426141.
Annie Oakley, http://www.biography.com/people/annie-oakley-9426141 (last visited Jun 18, 2013).
Annie Oakley. The Biography Channel website. 2013. Available at: http://www.biography.com/people/annie-oakley-9426141. Accessed Jun 18, 2013.
Oakley was a top earner for the Wild West Show and via her additional exhibition work, sharing money with her extended family and giving donations to charities for orphans. During World War I, Oakley volunteered to organize a regiment of female sharpshooters, but her petition was ignored, so, instead, she helped to raise money for the Red Cross with exhibition work at army camps.
During her retirement,
Oakley pursued such hobbies as hunting and fishing, and taught marksmanship to other women. In the early 1920s, Oakley and Butler were involved a car accident in which they were both severely hurt, but she did manage to perform again for a time in 1924.
Annie Oakley died on November 3, 1926, in Greenville, Ohio. The news of her death saddened the nation and brought forth a wave of tributes. Butler died on November 21, 1926.
Legacy and Media Depictions
Part of Oakley's lasting legacy is the Irving Berlin musical Annie Get Your Gun (1946), based on her life story, with the initial run starring Ethel Merman and later Broadway incarnations starring Reba McEntire and Bernadette Peters. Other media treatments of the markswoman's life have appeared as well, including the 1935 film Annie Oakley (which is noted for being historically inaccurate), and a variety of books geared toward both children and adults.
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Included In These Groups
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Wild West
View groupThe Wild West holds a special place in American history—Western films depict it as a place where the rules didn't apply, and where scores were settled with gun slinging and shootouts. The colorful characters who made up the old West were men, women, cowboys, Indians, sheriffs just plain outlaws. Though we've come to have a more nuanced understanding of the good and the bad of the old West, we can still learn from the stories of the people who made it and who wrote about what it was.
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Groundbreaking Women
View groupDespite all sorts of institutional obstacles, women have continued to reach stratospheric levels of success in a full gamut of professional pursuits, whether as scientists, scribes, educators, governmental leaders, athletes, designers, film directors or performers. Learn more about the plethora of triumphs obtained by our group of trailblazers.
Visit Biography.com's Women's History group to explore more biographies, photos and videos of some the world's most fascinating women.
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