Quigley Shooting Association
Annie Oakley.
Mike Davenport
Annie Oakley, famous for her rifle and shotgun expertise with clay pigeons descended into poverty after her father died when she was five years old. Her mother was unable to support her and the other five children, and having lost the family farm, placed her in the county poorhouse.
Soon after she was fostered by a couple who treated her very badly by over working her and administering frequent beatings, and on one occasion locking her out in the snow. Needless to say she ran away, and returned to the poorhouse. The experience was so traumatic that in later years she would not refer to this couple by name but referred to them as the “he wolf and the she wolf”.
After three years she returned to the family home and taught herself to shoot with her father’s old muzzle loader. Then she started hunting for the market and soon earned enough to enable her mother to repay her debts. She entered several shooting competitions, and in 1884 she was shooting with her new husband, Frank Butler in Buffalo Bills Wild West Circus.
Sitting Bull , another performer, nicknamed her “little sure shot” and even “adopted” her as his daughter. Her husband, Frank, although a fine shot, soon realised that she was much better than him, so he concentrated on furthering her career. She became famous and was well respected for her humility, politeness and good nature. Her nature may well have been tempered like steel through the heat of adversity. She even took time to make her own dresses to reflect her modest disposition.
The big surprise for her took place in 1903 after she had left the Wild West circus. A gutter journalist saw an indictment against a failed Vaudeville performer called Any Oakley and jumped to conclusions publishing a libellous attack against Annie. This was followed by several other newspapers in the William Randolph Hearst newspaper empire. Initially Annie sought and obtained retractions but also decided to sue each of the 55 in turn. She spent most of the next seven years doing this and was awarded several hundred thousand dollars in compensation. This may seem to be a large amount, but having paid her travelling expenses to several states, accommodation and lawyer’s fees, it was reduced to a much smaller figure.
This unfortunately affected her shooting career but she thought quite rightly that she had been damaged. She had always comported herself in a ladylike manner and was extremely upset by this attack on her character.
Hearst papers had a bad reputation for spreading innuendos and downright lies and it has been said that he caused the Spanish American War with some of his articles. Anyway juries loved her and she won 54 out of the 55 cases, making Hearst’s attempt at character assassination a joke. He had spent a great deal of money on investigations by the Pinkerton Detective Agency and had failed completely.
She died at the age of 66 on 3rd November 1926. Her husband, Frank Butler died 18 days later.
Destiny also had her revenge in the shape of Orson Welles who made the film Citizen Kane in 1939 portraying a newspaper magnate called Charles Foster Kane. The character of Kane played in the film by Wells was as close to the real life image of Hearst as you could possibly imagine. Hearst did everything he possibly could to stop this film, putting pressure on RKO , the studio producing the film. He even tried to get the original negative destroyed. To the credit of RKO they stood firm by Welles, and today the film is considered one of the best ten films ever made. Sadly the bystander casualty in this was Marion Davies, the Movie star and Hearst’s long time mistress, who was portrayed as a stupid silly girl in the film. Actually she was a fine actress and viewings of her pictures reveal this, and this is now acknowledged by film critics.
As for Annie Oakley , her character has appeared in many films, both documentary and fictional, possibly the last was the colour musical “Annie get your Gun”.
Further information can be found at https://centerofthewest.org/explore/buffalo-bill/research/annie-oakley/