With a widowed mother and six siblings, Annie Oakley first became a trapper, hunter, and sharpshooter simply to put food on the table. Yet her genius with the gun eventually led to her stardom in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show during the latter half of the nineteenth century. The archetypal western woman, Annie Oakley urged women to take up shooting to procure food, protect themselves, and enjoy healthy exercise, yet she was also the proper Victorian lady, demurely dressed and skeptical about the value of women’s suffrage. Glenda Riley presents the first interpretive biography of the complex woman who was Annie Oakley. Glenda Riley is Alexander M. Bracken Professor Emeritus of History at Ball State University, Muncie, Indiana, and a past President of the Western History Association. Published works she has authored include Women and Nature: Saving the “Wild” West and Inventing the American Woman Used Book in Good Condition