From the second she began shooting—first to put food on the table and only later as an entertainer—there was no denying Oakley’s knack for the sport. After meeting and marrying Frank Butler, she performed for years in the vaudeville circuit before joining Buffalo Bill’s show in 1885. She quickly became known as a maid of the West, performing stunts like shooting clay pigeons out of the air with a rifle while standing atop a galloping horse. Of course, to maintain her “ladyhood,” she always wore a skirt—usually one she had sewn herself.

“To present herself as a woman who had developed all the feminine skills that would be expected was very important to her,” says Mary Zeiss Stange, a professor of women’s studies at Skidmore College. “She was aware of the kinds of gender boundaries that she was trespassing.” Along with being a female in a field largely dominated by males, she had become an almost instant celebrity and had acquired wealth, which were essentially unheard of among women of that time.

But her success was predicated upon walking a delicate line between her celebrated talent for shooting and the Victorian social norms that valued ladylike, modest behavior over earning power.

“She had to make a girl that could shoot acceptable to a Victorian public,” says Scharff. “She’s inventing this new identity of the spunky Western girl who’s no threat to men who are good men.”

As a female shooter, Oakley took measures not to be perceived as dangerous; very few (if any) images exist that depict her killing any live animals. It was Oakley’s girlish manner—combined with her talent—that captivated audiences throughout the country and launched her to stardom.

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/how-annie-oakley-princess-of-the-west-preserved-her-ladylike-reputation-55701906/?no-ist