I first found out about Carl Akeley and his influence on Taxidermy on a show on one of the history/discovery/science channels a year or two ago. In the January/February 2007 Issue of Sporting Classics there is a good article on him as well for those interested.

Akeley was a very interestng guy, but his wife was amazing. Carl invented modern taxidermy, and mounted the elephant diarama at the NY Museum of Nat. Hist. He also shot most of those ele, and a lot more. The account of his wife saving him (he was injured) in the bush is nothing less than astounding, an act of extreme heroism similar to Gen. Chuck Yeager carrying his wounded comrade over the mountains.

Akeley wrote "In Brightest Africa". It's long out of print, but there may be some copies out there. Surprisingly, he disliked hunting, but did it out of necessity. If interest, try abebooks.com, or some of the regular sellers of Africana.

With a suitable deposit, I might be talked into loaning my copy.
Brice

Brice, that was only ONE of Ackley's wives. He seemed to go through them rather quickly. Aside from being credited with being the "Father of Modern Taxidermy", he, and NOT Jane Goddall was the prime mover in protecting the mountain gorilla from extinction. He was sent by a museum to collect a pair. He shot one and say the troops reaction to their fallen member and refused to take the second one. He immediately implemented actions to set them aside as a protected species and set up a game reserve where they'd live out their lives unmolested. Jane Goodall was appproached on just this fact and she refused comment. Nothing like a little self-serving ego.

I may be wrong but I'm pretty sure Jane Goodall studied Chimpanzees in Tanzania. The Jane Goodall Institute is dedicated to the preservation of Chimpanzees, not the mountain Gorilla. You may be thinking of Diane Fossey.

Jerry, you may be correct, but for some reason I THOUGHT it was Goodall who was pointedly asked the question about Ackeley's contribution to the study of primates and especially the mountain gorilla. She deferred. Memory is shot to hell anyway.

Excellent read, In Brightest Africa.
I got my copy at the local library book sale for $.50. Vaguely new the Ackley name but saw the word Africa in the title.

Dulcinea

He certainly was an interesting, odd, and driven fellow (like a lot of artists)

The biography African Obsession, The Life And Legacy of Carl Akeley by Penelope Bodry-Saunders is not a bad read if you are interested in him and his work.

When some taxidermy task I am working on starts to get tedious I often think about him in the bush, working all night, skinning out all those life-sized elephants! Then I realize that anything is possible, and my troubles go away!

Grafton and George,
Wouldn't it be nice to have the time and resources he had. Plenty of money backing you, lots of help, no worries about having to make a profit etc... It would be a whole different mind set than what we have to deal with on a daily bases.

double post

I have read his books and he had plenty of grief and troubles. "never wish you were someone else they are probably more screwed up than you"

The History channel ran the History of Taxidermy again about two weeks ago, and I got to watch all of it. I was surprised to see him covered so well in it. I read some years back about him wounding and then choking a leopard to death with his bare hands and of being atacked by the elephant, but didnt know he was that widely regarded as a taxidermist. Very good history lesson.

Eterry

AS I recall, he was short of cash for much of his life. Obviously some posters here know more about him than I do. I enjoyed you comments.

So, someone please tell me why taxidermists call them manikins (also mannikins, or manakins), but in a store they are mannequins?

In Brightest Africa is fine, but also fine reading is a book by a staff member of the Museum of Nat Hist. - Carl Akeley by Penelope Bodry-Sanders. Not widely reported is that he was also the inventor of Gunite, the first practically useful film camera, and a searchlight for WWI that was not easily destroyed.

Three other books of interest in the same realm of taxidermy, hunting/collecting, and museum work are:

Good Hunting; Fifty years of collecting and preparing habitat groups for the American Museum
by James L. Clark

My Way of Becoming A Hunter
by Robert Rockwell

Frontiers of Enchantment; An artists adventures in Africa
by William R. Leigh

Clark and Rockwell were both gifted sculpter/taxidermists and Leigh painted the landscapes for the African Hall.

One of Clarks other books, Trails of the Hunted was one of the first books that really got me hooked on Africa. All of these guys were true artists and their lives and work are an inspiration to me.