October 5—Garst Museum to Host Annie Oakley Historian

Shirl Kasper, MA, Ph.D., is a journalist and historian. In the early 1980s, she began researching Annie Oakley, which led to the 1992 publication of the biography, Annie Oakley. A former feature writer for The Kansas City Star, Shirl joined the National Park Service and worked as a historian on numerous projects.

After retiring, Shirl re-visited Annie Oakley. The original biography focused on a detailed reading of Oakley’s eight scrapbooks. With today’s Internet resources, Shirl was able to unearth primary materials all but impossible to find in the 1980s. Using these sources, she has written a new Afterward to the original book, which was reprinted and published in 2023. This Afterward sheds additional light on the lives of Oakley and her husband Frank Butler. On October 5, she will share some of her new discoveries fearturing their early lives, which place Annie on the stage earlier than previously thought and document Frank’s first marriage and the beginnings of Frank’s career in Camden, New Jersey.

Images courtesy of the Darke County Historial Society
Annie Oakley Center Foundation, Inc., P.O. Box 1025, Greenville, OH 45331
info@annieoakleycenterfoundation.com