 Her teacher Howard Pyle recommended Oakley and fellow artist Jessie Wilcox Smith for their first important commission, a series of illustrations for Longfellow’s "Evangeline", that was published in 1897, numerous commissions followed.Oakley painted a series of 43 murals in the Pennsylvania State Capitol Building in Harrisburg for the Governors Grand Reception Room, the Senate and the Supreme Court.Oakley was originally commissioned in 1902 only for the murals in the Governor's Grand Reception Room, which she titled "The Founding of the State of Liberty Spiritual."