We learn about performers Lillian Frances smith. Anny oakly and johnny baker. From the Buffalo Bill Center of the west in cody, wyoming. This is an hour and 20 minutes. On april 17, 1886, the omaha daily beast spoke of william codys visit to the town the day before. And his enthusiasm for his upcoming show. Which was to debut in st. Louis on may 9. After bragging about the number of sue actors he engage. Buffalo bill told of another coo. Theres one new artist i engaged who is a prodigy. A young girl only 15 years of age. Her powers with the rifle rk shotgun or revolver are marvelous. I dont bar anybody. Her name is Lillian Smith. He she comes from california. She will travel with her father and mother. Smith would later different herself from anny oakly and other performers by transforming herself into a native american princess. That transformation in 1901 presents a jux to position between youth and ethnicity. Through 1888 it was the Sharp Shooters youth and gender that presented both opportunities and lim limitations trt tune. Her acceptance presented some extraordinary challenges to a young girl. None of which had much to do with her shooting prowess. Lets see. Lee vi and reck ka smith. Accompanied their daughter from the wilds of the Central Coast of california to north plat. To st. Louis and to staten island. That summer of 1886. When i staten island. It was had made a business deal with buffalo bill. And they needed some entertainment and buffalo bill stepped up to the plate. So they got to new york that summerover 1886 where lillian wowed thousands of spectators daily. Alternating between a rifle and a to hit the bulls eye time and again. On horse book and foot. She broke 25 glass balls in a minute. Struck a plate 30 times in 15 seconds. Shot two balls rapidly on a string around a pole. And many, many, many other trick shots. Lillian Frances Smith was born in 1871 in california. Which is very near lake ta hoe. She was born to quakers who hailed from massachusetts and had moved to california with their young son about four years earlier. Her father later recounted that while host kid in the county were quote little william tells. He was still surprised one day to see his daughter lillian at age six could shoot and kill a spar row with a simple bow and arrow he made for her. In the late 1870s, he moved the family to the more temperate town. He built ships for river commerce. But also use td his extraordinary shooting ability to make extra money. From which from the miller and lux ranch. Lillian received a 22 rifle for her ninth birthday. Often accompanied her father on the shooting excursions. In no time she was roaming the river valley alone. Packing home rabbits and foul for the family to eat. Much like anny oakly did for her family as well. Smith caught the attention of locals in the suler of 1881. Santa cruz county has a shooting prodigy in the person of lillian f smith. A ten yearold girl who lives near coral. Reported the sacramento daily record union. Being an Incorporated Area of santa cruz county. This was in june of 1881. When she was not quite eleven years old. San francisco Amusement Park owner robert wood ward i dont think its going. Robert was so impressed ta he signed smith to her first formal exhibition on july 24. She showed no embarrassment the daily record union reported. And proceeded to shatter glass balls in a business like way. Worthy of dock carver. Reloading her rifle like a veteran. Okay its not doesnt seem to be. Thank you, sam. For the next two years. His daughter could beat anyone and offered purses of 500 to 5,000. I have not received any reply from anyone yet. He lamented in late 1884. I wince more will say i had match my daughter against dak carver. Captain ee stubs, and etc. Listing any number of famous Sharp Shooters. And described a number of options that people could do to challenge his daughter. Including hitting english pins to breaking glass balls with either richl or shotgun. The mastery of the ladder being something relatively new to lillian. In april 1885, came the young Sharp Shooters impressive exhibition in San Francisco. During which she used a winchester to break dock carvers speed record for shooting 100 glass balls. Bill cody most likely discovered Lillian Smith in or near San Francisco. The following spring. When he debuted his play the prairie waif. Her father could easily have reached out to cody and probably did. Or perhaps cody saw her shoot in one of the many galleries in hamlets outside the city. Whatever the case, meeting william cody could not have come at a better time for lillian. She had fairly established herself as the champion rifle shot of california. And probably felt a yearning for new challenges and a desire for some independence from her parents. I like to think of lillian as having feeling similar to those of a young olympic athletes today. Tense combination of wanting to stretch ones physical feats. But wishing one could simply hang out with other teenagers. Like johnny baker and anny oakly once lillian joined Buffalo Bills wild west she was a solo act. Shooting doing trick shots. Later on when the wild west moved up to Madison Square garden, and did its drama of civilization. They give gave lilian a bigger part. She would do more acting and incorporate it more scenery with her shooting work. Lil wrans persona in the buffalo bill wild west was not all that much different from her real childhood. Her brother charles also an exceptional gunman, was ten years older than her and while the siblings often went on family hunting adventures, charles eventually broke off with his family to start his own family. And much like an any oakley, lilian had become a source of income for her family from the age of nine on. We do not know how much lilian was in school, but we can assume that she was only there when absolutely required. Certainly she did not have playmates on her shooting exhibition tours up and down the state of california in her preteen and early teen years. Lilians publicity piece in the buffalo bill wild Wests Program in 1886 fairly accurately and by the way, you can see that program in the mccrack enresearch library. It fairly accurately reflected her real childhood, unique that it was. It went in part like this. At age seven lilian expressed herself as dissatisfied with dolls and wanted a little rifle. When nine years old her father bought her a ballard rifle. 22caliber. It weighed 7 pounds, which she still uses, with which after a little practice and instruction she got on her little pony and bagged two cotton tails, three jack rabbits and two kwals. She spent her leisure time with horse, dog and gun. On the ranges hunting and generally bringing home a meant i feel supply of game. She accompanied her father to a lagoon near the san with a keen river when ducks were meant i feel. And it says a little note about when ducks were plentiful. Miller and lux transform the Central Valley of california into the agricultural mechanic ka that it is today and in order to do that they needed to cut waterways all throughout the Central Valley. Probably about, i dont know, 900 square miles. So lilian and her father with skiff along these new inlets, and they would shoot the ducks and the geese when they came down to eat the farmers alfal fa seeds. He was greatly aton i should by her killing 40 red heads and malladders mostly on the wing. After another occasion in which the family was camping in nearby santa cruz, lilian surprised her mother and other true story, by the way. I have find newspaper reports to back this up. In which the family was camping in nearby santa crews lilian surprised her mother and other campers by depositing at her feet the car can you say of a wild cat, dead from a shot square in the heart. Her fame spread throughout the golden state and her father was induced to present her to the public of San Francisco where in july of 1881 she gave seven successful receptions at woodwards Amusement Park. Which was like did i see any land today. This won her a host of admirers and compliments from those who before seeing her had been inkred house. The program goes on to discuss the many prices smith won before being discovered by william cody, almost all of the incidents mentioned her in publicity pieces can be directly attributed to contemporary sources such as Central Valley newspaper accounts of her exploits, gun club reports, vital records and oral histories. As Martin Woodruff here found in his wonderful study of youth in codys wild west the shows performers all performed with gunls, uniting child, rifle and nature in the story of american frontier con quest, a construction that grew out of longstanding links between the romantic child and the natural world. For lilian smith this was a natural continuation of her real life. In the early 1880s the United States frontier was just a few years away from being closed forever, but californias san with a keen river valley area was still some of the roughest toughest terrain a man or awe girl could conquer. According to smith her parents camped near the wild west show grounds at all times, were averse to her mingling with the opposite sex, believing her too young. Smith disagreed. I never had any Children Playmates she told one reporters, so i suppose i consider myself prematurely old. Old enough to embark on a steady flirtation with cowboy skblams kid will oh bewho was 14 years her senior. In september before the troops set up at Madison Square garden lilian married jim kid in his tent while others distracted her parents. There is no doubt that lilian was truly submit enwith jim kid. He was kind and honorable, funny and good looking. But this marriage served another purpose for smith as well. Willow besuffered as a buffer between smith and her parents more specifically her father levi. There was much discussion in the press that autumn of 86 discussion about whether the marriage was valid about whether her father would succeed in breaking the pair up. In any case in april of 1887 smith and will oh beconsidered themselves a married couple and when they left the docks of new york city and headed toward england everyone knew them as husband and wife. Notably lilians parents did not accompany their daughter on this leg of the show. After all, a married woman did not need a chaperone. She had her husband. So while marrying jim kid was a way for the young lilian to escape the cluchls of her stage parent father, she soon found herself mired in a social in social and professional scenarios she never could have anticipated being so young. As glenda riley notes in her oakley biography, cody had obviously failed to think through the lilian smith to the rest of the company, especially to her direct competitor. Perhaps, though, its just as likely the colonel simply thought of both women as accomplished performers that he needed to add to the wild west. In any case, any possible camaraderie between an any oakley and lilian smith soured within days of the two meeting each other in 1886. Oakley lopped six years off her birth date for the press making her 20 years old again instead of 26. Smith ran around bragging that an any oakley would be done for once the audience saw her own self shoot. Lilian told american reporters that she spent the most time with queen victoria, showing the queen the mechanics of her firearm and receiving warm accolades from the monarch. Indeed a sketch from the London Illustrated times seemed to bear this out and the oakley camp fired back, talking about how well oakley did at with him bell done while smith did so poorly. And that is true. Husbands frank butler and kid willow by stepped into the pray acting as protective proektsz for the two women and trading bashs in the two newspapers and sporting magazines like american field on behalf of their wives. They left codys show in 1887 only to return in 1889 whether the show no longer included smith, which was probably a condition of oakleys return. Although smiths sharp shooting rivalled oakleys the latters dpla of petite dough mess advertisety out shown smith, who was heavy and single. In fact, lilian had just been promoted to a bigger act before the show returned to new york in 1888. Consisting of trk shooting off the backs of horses alongside cody and johnny baker in the ring. The butlers ability to negotiate and to promote an any as a celebrity with victorian moors clearly over road smiths raw talent. Her feelings about being pushed out of the wild west are not recorded, but one can only imagine the disappointment she must be felt. A teenage disappointment made he is poe neshlel worse by the fact that she was working on a very grown up stage. It should come at no surprise, then, that later on smith borrowed a page from an any oakleys book. In the summer of 1901 when she was nearly 30 years old after a successful vaudville career but one in which she felt stifled being indoors so much, lilian was hired by frederick t. Cummins to appear in his Indian Congress at the worls fair in 1901 in buffalo. Cumminss ethnoological exhibition featured lilian the california hundred treasury as win oh that, long lost sue or fan. She added princess to her name when she and common law husband french halfly later joined upony bills wild west. The california girl was now an indian girl. According to various press accounts win oh that was either the daughter of a white mother and a sue chief or a sue mother and a white pioneer or she was full blooded sue raised by a white family. Take your pick. She wore beaded buck skin tunics or jumpers or dresses and routinely styled her hair in braids. Sometimes crowned in etf erred head pieces. And in all of the 1901 exhibition publicity pieces for lilian smith as win oh that, 11 years were lopped off her true age, making her 18 years old again and still a child of nature. Thank you. [applause] thank you. Now to give us something of an any oakleys take on all of this we have monica rico, who is an associate professor of history at Lawrence University in am ton, wisconsin, where shes taught since 2001. Her Research Interests include environmental history, gender history and the american west, and her book which no doubt many of us have heard of is natures noticeable man, transatlantic mass could you lynn its which came out in 2013. Shes currently working on a book eleventh project. And shes going to talk today about annee oakley performing the new girl. Its loading like crazy. There we go. Okay. So first of all, some of you probably know rex meyers and susan richards, and i have to thank them although theyre not here because they spruced me to jeremy about ten years ago, and jeremy introduced me to Frank Kristen son, so big thanks to frank and jeremy for having me here. Its really a pleasure. Im not going to talk that much, to be honest, about an any oakleys take on things. Im going to actually try to talk a little bit more about how the people who surrounded her may have understood or read her performance within the cultural context of their time. And in so doing i want to try to provide some context for some additional context for this sort of apparent fascination with girlishness that seemed to have been part of female performance in the wild west arena. So in some ways with oakley there is kind of this proliferation of images of her. We do have some writings from her. She gave quite a few newspaper interviews. But the actual image of her in some ways has kind of floated free from the historical oakley to represent a wide variety of things. So in childrens books shes often upheld as a kind of model of a talented girl who pursued her dreams. In the film with barbara stan wick shes really a romantic her oh win. This is a poster from the early 90s revival of an any get your gun. You have two theet rick cal takes. In the 1950s there was a Television Serial featuring ran an any oakley individual who was a shearith of a town who solved crimes. Wasnt married but had an invalid kid brother whom she took care of. And this is in addition to various other dime novels, programs, pictures and so on. There is the actual historical an any oakley. And that image as well is a pretty popular kind of image when ef fem ra from the wild west is given out to people. So we see some of the kind of key trademarks of her look, which she refined fairly early in her career, and then kind of kept pretty static throughout that career. So what id like to do in the next slide is talk a little bit about what that image was. So oakley faced several kind of challenges as a female performer in the wild west. One of those challenges was ensuring that she didnt look too masculine, too an droj news. It was important for her to be a feminine, a vision of femininety in the arena and to not be seen as overly challenging or subverting or undermining gender norms. But at the same time it was also important for her to be a respectable woman, to be seen as not an actress or an acrobat or a dancer, all kind of roles of entertainment that was associated with sexual i am morality. Just as cody often emphasized that the wild west was really an educational experience and not a show, oakley stressed that her performance was really a demonstration of skill rather than a piece of show biz. Now, obviously thats a claim. Underneath it there was plenty of entertainment and lots of careful construction of a neatly paced act that had a climax. But one of the things that she emphasized was that she really performed her tricks. There wasnt any subterfuge or slight of hand. A lot of theater Sharp Shooters, not other arena Sharp Shooters, but theater Sharp Shooters were known to use various kinds of tricks and rusz to perform their stunts. In the space of the wild west arena you couldnt really do that. You actually had to kind of walk your talk. You had to show that you really could perform these stunts. And so one of the