This morning a friend forwarded me a link to a scholarly article which was published in 1996 about Annie Oakley.  Before reading the article, I knew what you might call the public facts of the situation.  Annie Oakley was an outspoken and outstanding sharpshooter in Buffalo Bill's Wild West show.

 At the time, the women's suffrage movement was working hard to gain traction in the public's mind.  Annie Oakley, as an independent, spirited woman, was theoretically the perfect candidate to put that public face on the fledgling women's rights movement.  If anyone could convince people that women deserved to be allowed to vote, you would think it would be Annie Oakley.

And yet, Oakley turned them down repeatedly.  She also refused to dabble in the feminist practical styles of clothing like bloomers, choosing instead to ride sidesaddle and always wear dresses.  It must have been maddening for the feminists of the times, but hey, even outspoken female public figures can be as conservative and misogynist as the men.

This scholarly article, entitled "Why Annie Got Her Gun," turned all of that on its head.  Suffice it to say, I have a new appreciation for Annie Oakley.  She deserves to be reclaimed as a feminist figure, albeit an unusual one.

The article's author Carolyn Gage asserts that Oakley's mien stems from the physical and sexual abuse she suffered at the hands of a man she referred to only as "the he-wolf."  

Annie Oakley (then still known by her birth name, Phoebe Ann Mosey) was born into a frighteningly poor family.  The fifth of nine children, her family lived on the county poor farm.  "Poor farms" were the American equivalent of the Dickensian poorhouse; rural farms where poor families lived as sharecroppers, given food and housing in exchange for their unceasing work on the farm.

At the age of nine, she was sent to work in the home of a local family.  To quote Gage, at this new family's home, Oakley was "held prisoner, beaten, frozen, starved, over-worked, and possibly sexually abused."  She was able to escape after two years, running away and begging train fare from strangers in order to flee the hell her parents had signed her up for.

Is it any surprise, then, that this tough little girl would grow into a tough little woman?  Oakley took the West up on its promise and reinvented herself as the world's best sharpshooter.  Under the circumstances, who can blame her for becoming fond of guns?

Despite retaining every outward appearance of decorous femininity, Annie Oakley was a tireless campaigner for women's rights to bear arms.  She frequently held beginning firearms classes for women only, and promised squads of sharpshooting women to both President McKinley and then President Wilson.  (Her offers were politely ignored.)

Although Oakley married young, and remained married to Irish immigrant Francis Butler throughout her life, their marriage was childless.  Gage believes that Oakley's marriage was asexual, possibly as a result of sexual hang-ups and post traumatic stress disorder arising from her early abuse.  She could also have been abused so badly that she was rendered infertile, which is sadly not uncommon.  

What is certain is that Butler loved Oakley dearly.  Annie Oakley died at the age of 66 in 1926.  Butler stopped eating after Oakley's death, and died a mere 18 days later.

Creative Commons-licensed image courtesy of Flickr user Becky F