4647 "PAWNEE BILL" & "MAY LILLIE" CABINET CARDS.

Category Firearms & Military
Auction Currency USD
Start Price 300.00 USD
Estimated at 600.00 - 800.00 USD
Both cabinet cards by Sword's Brothers photographers, York, PA. Pawnee Bill (1860-1942) & May Lillie (1869-1936) stars of Pawnee Bill's Wild West Show were husband and wife. (May Lillie) Mary "May" Manning was born on March 12, 1869, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. May met Gordon William Lillie who became famous as Pawnee Bill while attending Smith College in 1886, they married same year. Gordon Lillie's wedding gift to his bride was a pony and a Marlin .22 target rifle. In 1887 May debuted at a sharpshooter for Pawnee Bill's Great Wild West Show and was billed as "the greatest Lady Horseback Rifle-shot of the World". May traveled the country with her husband's show and was one of the first women to perform as an equestrian and shooter in American Wild West shows. May suffered a shooting injury during an act in 1899 that required two of her fingers to be amputated. While on tour in 1907, May gave a speech to women in Chicago, she said: "Let any normally healthy woman who is ordinarily strong screw up her courage and tackle a bucking bronco, and she will find the most fascinating pastime in the field of feminine athletic endeavor. There is nothing to compare, to increase the joy of living, and once accomplished, she'll have more real fun than any pink tea or theater party or ballroom ever yielded". Eventually, May and Gordon settled in Pawnee, Oklahoma, on Blue Hawk Peak. They built a cabin, established a buffalo herd, and in 1910, completed work on their Arts and Crafts style home. May was the hands-on manager of the Lillie Buffalo Ranch. She believed in the buffalo's importance to the heritage of the American West and to Plains Indian culture. CONDITION: good overall, soiled, scuffed. PROVENANCE: Martin Lane Historic & Western Americana Lifetime Collection. (02-21939, 02-21940/JS). $600-800.