Like innumerable peoples before them, pre-Columbian Native American tribes practiced a form of sacred architecture for ritualistic purposes. Unlike the Pyramids of Giza or Stonehenge, these monuments didn’t require herculean feats of strength to construct. They were, however, enormously complex.
Due their loose construction and centuries of exposure to the elements, only a handful of medicine wheels can definitively classified as astronomical observatories today (though the distinct possibility that some may have acted solely as ceremonial centers remains.) Saskatchewan’s Moose Mountain Medicine Wheel is one of those select few, and displays solstice alignments every bit as striking as those at Big Horn. Moreover, radiocarbon dating indicates that it is at least 2400 years old — evidence that early North Americans may have been more technologically sophisticated that previously thought.
Annie Oakley died on November 3, 1924 from pernicious anemia. Her life is a testament to the strength and determination of American frontierswomen. Skilled with weapons and equal to many of her male counterparts, Annie Oakley remains an integral part of western history.
Born in Ohio on August 13, 1860, Annie’s given name was Phoebe Ann Oakley Mozee. She had a total of seven siblings and came from a childhood of economic hardship and parental death. She never received any sort of a formal education. When her mother lost her second husband, Annie was put into care for a while but suffered abuse and was returned to her mother who married for a third time. Oakley’s childhood made her tough and resilient and perhaps a bit of a loner.
Oakley was an expert marksman from a very early age and started practicing her shooting skills at the tender age of 9. At the age of 16, she was already receiving money for her shooting games and entered her first professional competition against her husband to be Frank Butler (1850-1926). They married in 1876.
In the early 1880s, Oakley traveled with her husband on the Vaudeville circuit, performing shooting feats and contests for a paying audience. They went across the country together where Oakley got to meet many famous people of the day, including Sitting Bull who she became friends with. Sitting Bull gave Annie Oakley the nickname of “Little Sure Shot.” Her skills as a marksmen were never questioned by man or woman, rich or poor, townsfolk or royal. Her place in history was quickly secured.
It was in 1885 that the star crossed (or rifle crossed) couple joined the famous Buffalo Bill Wild West Show. Butler stepped aside so that his wife could become the female star of the Wild West show. They traveled all over Europe and even performed for Queen Victoria. Oakley won numerous medals and awards for her skills. They stayed with the show for 16 years. Even in her own time, Oakley was considered a role model for other women from both the States and the rest of the world.
Despite offering to lead a female regimen in World War I, Oakley ended up spending her time with the Red Cross during the war and spending time for her famous show dog, Dave. A comeback was planned for the early 1920s but a car accident put both Butlers out of commission for some time.
Oakley and Butler stayed together until the very end passing away within three weeks of each other in November of 1926. Their story is truly endearing and inspirational and Annie Oakley will forever be remembered as America’s cowgirl. Her role in the perception of women and creating the wild stories of the American west will endure long after the last remnants of western boomtowns crumble and disappear.
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Tags: 1860, 1876, 1880s, 1885, 1920s, 1924, 1926, America's Cowgirl, American History, American West, Annie Oakley, August 13, Buffalo Bill, expert marksman, Frank Butler, History DVDs, Little Sure Shot, November 3, Old West Store, Phoebe Ann Oakley Mozee, Queen Victoria, replica guns, Replica Swords, scale model kits, Sitting Bull, Vaudeville, wild west, Wild West Show, world war i
Denim has become a fabric so popular and current in contemporary fashion that in its ubiquity we may forget it has a history too. The origins of the denim fabric are somewhat disputed but some historians trace its production to centers in Italy and France during the sixteenth century where mention is made of fabrics ‘de Nimes’ (from a region in France) or ‘jean’ from production centers in Italy that were made of various threads including wool, silk, cotton. By the 18th and 19th centuries the production of denim had transmitted successfully to England and the United States and had begun to detach itself from association with ‘jean’, becoming a durable, entirely cotton weave fabric, akin to the denim we are familiar with now. 
Jean and denim remained different in their categorization through the 19th century- with ‘jean’ fabric being designated for slightly more refined clothing and the sturdier denim weave being used for work-clothes and considered a much simpler, unpretentious textile. The first textile mills in the United States arose in New England and that is where in the mid 1800’s the production of denim in the weave and color we are familiar with began as well.
A curious accessory for men that has come in and out of fashion over the last roughly 200 years is the suspender or brace to hold up the pants. In the early 1820’s a company in England developed modern braces made of silk with leather buttonhole tips that would be worn under the waistcoat and attached to the high-waisted pants current in the 19th and early 20th century. Braces, or suspenders, were considered accessory underwear and would not have been seen in public.
When Queen Victoria ascended to the throne of England in 1837 she cut a particular image. She was a diminutive woman, about 4′ 11″ in height, but had all the power of an empire behind her and she carried herself as such in the fashions she chose. She came to the public spotlight at a time when the fashion for women’s clothing was becoming more restrictive and confining in some ways yet these she promoted as being exemplars of a woman’s strive for virtue and uprightness. Her reign would be characterized by a high sense of decorum and moral code and developed a confirmed identity that we have since classified as the Victorian era.
With Victoria, as England entered the Industrial Age, censure of wayward social attitudes and actions paralleled an increase in opportunities (through urban life) to stretch the boundaries of social etiquette. Queen Victoria was paramount in popularizing a fashion of constraint and reform. Bodices were close-fitting, ending in a V-shape, and shaped by fine whalebone frames that contained the female figure formidably. Tailoring was precise in the cut of the seams so that a woman’s arms were somewhat constrained by the cut of the wide collared and low-shouldered chemises and by the narrowness of the sleeves. By the mid 1840’s the woman’s fashion in skirts had become more exaggerated and compiled of excessive cloth and bustling. The bell-shaped skirt was favored and, as the addition of fabric increased the weight on the garment, the shaping of the skirt was aided by metal or whalebone frames.
