ROOSEVELT AFRICAN HALL--A RECORD FOR THE FUTURE
I have dreamt many dreams. Some of them have been forgotten. Others
have taken concrete shape and become pleasing or hateful to me in
varying degree. But one especially has dwelt with me through the
years, gradually shaping itself into a commanding plan. It has become
the inspiration and the unifying purpose of my work; all my efforts
during recent years have bent toward the accomplishment of this single
objective--the creation of a great African Hall which shall be called
Roosevelt African Hall.
I have always been convinced that the new methods of taxidermy are not
being used to the full; that, although the taxidermic process has been
raised to an artistic plane, a great opportunity still remains for
its more significant and comprehensive use in the creation of a great
masterpiece of museum exhibition. Then, too, I have been constantly
aware of the rapid and disconcerting disappearance of African wild
life. And I suppose that those two considerations gave rise to the
vision of the culmination of my work in a great museum exhibit,
artistically conceived, which should perpetuate the animal life, the
native customs, and the scenic beauties of Africa.
When I returned to America in 1911, my mind saturated with the beauty
and the wonder of the continent I had left, I was dreaming of African
Hall. One year later my ideas were sufficiently defined to be laid
before Professor Henry Fairfield Osborn, President of the American
Museum of Natural History, who approved my plans and asked that they
be presented to the Trustees of the Museum. The plan that I proposed
to the Trustees provided for a great hall devoted entirely to Africa,
which should put in permanent and artistic form a satisfying record of
fast-disappearing fauna and give a comprehensive view of the topography
of the continent by means of a series of groups constructed in the best
museum technique. Neither in this nor in any other country has such
an exhibit been attempted. Not only would the proposed hall preserve
a unique record of African wild life, but it would also establish a
standard for museum exhibition in the future.
The Trustees approved my plan for immediate execution; the undertaking
was to go forward as rapidly as funds were available. One of the old
North American mammal halls, rechristened the "elephant studio,"
because there the mounting of the elephant group was already under way,
was retained for my use and there, to crystallize my conception, I made
a model of the African Hall. This model represents a great unobstructed
hall, in the centre of which stands a statuesque group of four African
elephants with a group of rhinos at either end. Both on the ground
floor and in the gallery, with windows seeming to open upon them, are
arranged habitat groups of the African fauna with typical accessories
and panoramic backgrounds. The long and arduous task of mounting the
central elephant group, the first unit for the exhibit which the model
sketched in miniature, was interrupted by the war.
Many of the undertakings that were making long strides toward
completion in 1914, to-day stand arrested due to conditions following
the war. Only one by one can they fall back to their natural places
in the march of progress, and the most urgent must be given place
first. African Hall is one of those projects which cannot be delayed.
Now or never must it become a reality. Twenty-five years ago, with
innumerable specimens at hand, its development would have been an
impossibility. Even if a man had had all the animals he wanted from
Africa, he could not have made an exhibit of them that would have been
either scientific, natural, artistic, or satisfying, for twenty-five
years ago the art of taxidermy and of museum exposition of animal life
hardly existed. Likewise, in those days much of the information that we
had about animals through the tales of explorers, collectors, and other
would-be heroes was ninety-five per cent. inaccurate.
Twenty-five years hence the development of such a hall will be equally
impossible for the African animals are so rapidly becoming extinct
that the proper specimens will not then be available. Even to-day the
heads that are reaching London from British East Africa are not up to
the old standards. If an African Hall is to be done at all, it must
be done now. And even if it is done now, we must have men to do it who
have known Africa for at least a quarter of a century. Africa to-day is
a modern Africa, the Africa of the Age of Man. Africa then was still
the Africa of the Age of Mammals, a country sufficiently untouched
by civilization to give a vivid impression of Africa a hundred years
ago. By the time the groups are in place in African Hall, some of the
species represented will have disappeared. Naturalists and scientists
two hundred years from now will find there the only existent record of
some of the animals which to-day we are able to photograph and to study
in the forest environment. African Hall will tell the story of jungle
peace, a story that is sincere and faithful to the African beasts as I
have known them, and it will, I hope, tell that story so convincingly
that the traditions of jungle horrors and impenetrable forests may be
obliterated.
With all haste, when the war was over, I turned again to African
Hall--to Roosevelt African Hall, for naturally after the death of that
great American who so deeply desired to bring to the world a knowledge
of beautiful Africa and who had himself shot the old cow for the
elephant group, we gave the proposed hall his name. The thought that my
greatest undertaking was to stand as a memorial to Theodore Roosevelt
doubled my incentive. I am giving the best there is in me to make
Roosevelt African Hall worthy of the name it bears.
[Illustration: Plan of the main floor and gallery of Roosevelt African
Hall]
The structure itself will be of imposing dimensions. A spacious
open hall will occupy the central portion of the building. As I have
planned it, the floor measurement of this great open space is sixty
by one hundred and fifty-two feet; the height to the gallery at the
sides is seventeen feet and that over the centre to the ceiling,
thirty feet. Its floor space will be encroached upon only at the
corners by the elevators; that is, the actual open floor space without
columns or any obstruction whatever will be sixty by one hundred and
sixteen feet. In the centre of this large hall will stand the group
of four African elephants treated in statuesque fashion, mounted on a
four-foot base with no covering of glass. At one end of the elephants,
the group of black rhinoceros will be placed; at the other end, the
white rhinoceros. As a result of late developments in the technique of
taxidermy, we are able to treat these pachyderms so that they will not
suffer because of lack of protection under glass. Changing atmospheric
conditions will have no effect upon them and they can receive
essentially the care given to bronzes.
Since the elephant is the largest land mammal in the world to-day
and one of the most splendid of all animals of the past or present,
and especially since it is typical of Africa, it is fitting that the
elephant should dominate this hall. Except for bronzes at either end
facing the main entrances, there will be nothing in the central open
space to detract from the majesty of the elephants and the lumbering
bulk of the rhinos. Visitors, pausing to study the elephants, may look
out on either side as though through open windows into an African
out-of-doors, for the other great animals of the continent in their
natural environment of forest, plain, river, or mountain, will surround
the central hall. The position of these habitat groups in a kind of
annex has a double advantage: it permits them to be carefully protected
against atmospheric conditions and prevents any infringement upon the
measurements of the hall proper. There will be forty of these realistic
groups--twenty viewed from the main floor and twenty more, similarly
executed, but displaying the smaller animals, viewed from the gallery.
The forty canvases used as backgrounds will be painted by the
best artists available. Each will be an accurate portrayal of a
definite type of African scenery, usually showing some feature
of importance--Mt. Kenia on the equator, the waterless plains of
Somaliland, or the gorilla forests of the Kivu country. Together they
will give a comprehensive idea of the geographical aspect of Africa
from the Mediterranean on the north to Table Mountain at Cape Town, and
from the east coast to the west coast.
The mounted specimens in the foreground will combine to represent in
the most comprehensive way the animal life of the continent. These
groups will be composite--that is, as many species will be associated
in each of them as is consistent with scientific fact. For example, one
of the large corner groups will represent a scene on the equatorial
river Tana, showing perhaps all told a dozen species in their natural
surroundings with stories of the animals and a correct representation
of the flora. In the foreground on a sandbar in the river will be
a group of hippos; across the stream and merging into the painted
background, a group of impalla come down to water; in the trees and on
the sandbars of the farther bank two species of monkeys common to the
region; a crocodile and turtles basking in the sun near the hippos, and
a few characteristic birds in the trees.
Another of these large corner groups will be a scene of the plains,
a rock _kopje_ with characteristic animals such as the klipspringer,
hyrax, Chanler's reedbuck, and baboons on the rocks, the background
leading off across the plain showing a herd of plains animals--and the
adjoining group continuing the story by showing more of the species of
the plains. The third of the large corner groups will represent a Congo
forest scene with the okapi and chimpanzee perhaps, and such animals as
may be associated legitimately with the okapi. The fourth group will be
a desert scene, a water hole with a giraffe drinking and other animals
standing by, awaiting their turn.
In these four corner groups we can present the four important physical
features of African game country, and they can be supplemented, of
course, by the scenes in the thirty-six other groups. The large groups,
however, give opportunity for particularly striking scenic effects.
[Illustration: A SECTION OF THE "ANNEX" CONTAINING THE HABITAT GROUPS
(A) Floor of group space, sunk four feet below the level of hall floor
to permit of various elevations of foregroup in group. (B) Floor of
gallery group case. (E) Glass roof of gallery group case. (F) Glass
roof of main floor group case.
(G) Glass in front of gallery case set at angle to cut reflections.
(H) Glass in main floor case. (I) Space occupied by bronze panels. (J)
Space above gallery groups for artificial lighting purposes. (L) Plane
of painted background.]
Lack of care in museum exhibition has come about in part at least
because of the lack of permanence in the specimens exhibited. Now that
we have reached a point in the development of taxidermy technique
where we can say without reservation that our preparations are
permanent, permanent to a degree only dreamed of within the last
twenty years, we feel justified in taking extreme measures to insure
the future care and preservation of these preparations. The elephants
and rhinos can be made as permanent as bronze for endurance under all
conditions, but the other animal groups with their backgrounds and with
accessories necessarily made largely of wax cannot be thus exposed.
That they shall not suffer from excessive light and from changing
atmospheric conditions, they will be placed in two great alleyways on
either side of, but practically outside, the hall, hermetically sealed
off from the hall proper and also from the outside atmosphere. Thus
each group will be absolutely protected from changes in temperature and
humidity. Each group will be in fact within an individual compartment,
and allowed to "breathe" only the air of the alleyway, which is
filtered and dried and kept at a uniform temperature throughout the
year. Artificial light will be used for these groups.
The amount of light required on them will be relatively small because
of the fact that they are to be viewed from a relatively dark central
hall. We shall be looking from the hall into the source of light rather
than from the source of light outward. Also, reflections can be reduced
to a minimum and practically eliminated, owing to the fact that the
groups are the source of illumination, by having the glass in the front
of the case inclined at such an angle that it reflects only the dark
floor.
In addition to the forty groups, twenty-four bas-relief panels in
bronze (six by eleven feet each) are planned as a frieze just above the
floor groups and along the balcony to form a series around the entire
lower floor, becoming a part of the architectural decoration of the
hall. The sculpture of each panel will tell the story of some native
tribe and its relations to the animal life of Africa.
For instance, one panel will show a Dorobo family, the man skinning
a dead antelope brought in from the forest to his hut, where are his
wife and babies and two hunting dogs, their only domestic animals. A
further interest in animal life will be revealed in the presence of the
dead antelope as it is a source of food and clothing, for these people
live entirely by hunting. Another panel may show a group in Somaliland
with camels, sheep, goats, cattle, and ponies at a water hole, domestic
beasts furnishing the interest in animal life. Still another panel
completing the Somali story will represent a group of Midgans in some
characteristic hunting scene. While each of these panels should be
a careful and scientifically accurate study of the people and their
customs, accurate in detail as to clothing, ornaments, and weapons, the
theme running through the whole series should be the relationship of
the people to animal life.
If an exhibition hall is to approach the ideal, its plan must be
that of a master mind, while in actuality it is the product of the
correlation of many minds and hands. In all the museums of the world
to-day there are few halls that reveal a mastering idea and an
interdependence of arts and crafts. Administrations change. One man's
aim is replaced by an aim entirely different when another undertakes
his work. The institution's inheritance of exhibits must usually be
housed along with the new. Recently acquired specimens, satisfactorily
mounted, are crowded in inadequate space and completely subordinate
those specimens which, although they are of equal importance for the
understanding of the spectator, give no illusion of life and have
no appeal. Even when the architectural arrangement is good and the
taxidermy acceptable, a heterogenous collection of exhibition cases or
an inadequate lighting system may mar the harmony of the whole. Thus,
there are plentiful opportunities in the meandering process, of which
an exhibition hall is frequently the result, for the original plan to
become fogged.
But no such conditions shall spoil the symmetry of Roosevelt African
Hall. Every animal killed has been carefully selected with this great
exhibit in mind. Each group mounted is being constructed as an integral
part of the whole. A building has been especially designed to give the
exhibit the most effective and appropriate setting. And the future
is being insured by the training of men who shall carry forward the
technique so far developed. Each man is carefully chosen. Each must
have energy, common sense, a special ability, and a great love for
the duties at hand. And although each may be a specialist in his own
line, all are forming the habit of working together as day by day they
assemble the carefully tanned skins, the clean, well-shaped manikins,
the silk and wax leaves and grasses, and the painted canvases for the
backgrounds. For the first time we have the opportunity to train a
group of men not only to practise the various arts which are combined
in making modern zoölogical exhibits, but also to further develop the
methods that make this sort of museum exhibition worth while from the
scientific and artistic standpoint. In this considerable corps of men I
am resting my hope that the technique of my studio shall be carried on
to higher perfection instead of scattering or being carried underground
when my part shall be done. This is important not only for Africa, but
for all other continents as well, inasmuch as we are making records of
rapidly disappearing animal life. From my point of view, this school of
workers is perhaps the most important of all the results of the work on
Roosevelt African Hall.
Every group in Roosevelt African Hall must be made by the men who
make the studies in Africa so that the selection of environment, the
background, and the story to be told shall be typical and so that every
detail of accessory or background shall be scientifically accurate.
It was formerly the custom, and is still in many museums, to send
hunters into the field to kill animals and to send the skins back to
the museum where a taxidermist mounts them. The taxidermist does not
know the animals. He has no proper measurements for them. Usually the
hunter does not supply them and, even if he does, they are of little
value; for one man's measurements are not often reliable guides for
another man to work by. In making a group as it really should be done,
we cannot rely on one man out in the field to shoot and another back
at the museum to mount. The men who study the animal and who shoot him
must come back and mount him, and the men who make the accessories and
who paint the background must go and make their studies on the spot.
When all this is done the cost of the skins, instead of being half the
expense of a group, is not five per cent.
I shall make the gorilla group, on which I am now at work, a real
example of the proper method. A gorilla group undertaken three years
ago in the average museum would have been done in the following manner.
Skins would have been purchased from hunters in Africa. The men who
were going to mount them would have studied the available writings on
gorillas. They would have found out that the gorilla was a ferocious
animal who inhabited the dense forests and, like as not, that he lived
in trees most of the time. And that is the kind of animal the group
would have shown.
Not satisfied with such a method, I went to Africa to get acquainted
with the gorilla in his home. I found him in a country of marvellous
beauty, spending much of his time in the open forests or in the
sunshine of the hillsides. I found, too, that he was neither ferocious
nor in the habit of living in trees. He can climb a tree just as a man
can climb a tree, but a group of human beings up a tree would be as
natural as a gorilla group in the same position.
The setting of the group of five gorillas is to be an exact
reproduction of the spot where the big male of Karisimbi died. In
mounting them I have my personal observation, my data and material to
work from. My own measurements are significant and helpful. I have
photographs of the scenery, the setting, and the gorillas themselves.
I have photographs of their faces--not distorted to make them hideous
but as they naturally were--and death masks which make a record that
enables me to make the face of each gorilla mounted a portrait of an
individual. All this makes these unlike any other mounted gorillas in
the world. After all the work that I had put on them I was glad to get
the corroboration of one who knows gorillas as well as T. Alexander
Barnes. He had followed gorillas in the Kivu country where I got my
specimens. As he looked at the first of the group standing in my
studio, he exclaimed, "Well, thank God! At last one has been mounted
that looks like a gorilla."
Still with all our work we are only well started on the gorilla group.
The background--and it is a beautiful scene--must be painted by as
great an artist as we can get and he must go to Karisimbi to make his
studies. And the preparators who make the accessories--the artificial
leaves, trees, and grasses--they, too, must go to examine the spot
and collect their data, for every leaf and every tree and every blade
of grass must be a true and faithful copy of nature. Otherwise, the
exhibit is a lie and it would be nothing short of a crime to place it
in one of the leading educational institutions of the country.
But, someone will say, this is all in the future. What has already been
accomplished? What definitely is the status of Roosevelt African Hall?
Well, I am mounting animals. The elephant group, the white
rhinoceroses, and one of the okapi are completed and are now on
exhibition. Work on the gorilla group is advancing rapidly. There are
already collected and awaiting their turn to be mounted materials for
a black rhino group and a lion group. I have estimated that it will
require at least ten years and the expenditure of one million dollars
to complete the work. And there is good reason to hope that the money
needed will be provided. President Henry Fairfield Osborn in his Annual
Report of the American Museum of Natural History for 1922 has called
for a gift or a special endowment of one million dollars to finance
and develop Roosevelt African Hall in addition to other funds now
available, stressing this as the most pressing need of the Museum in
the year 1923. The income from such a special endowment will enable us
to complete the African Hall during the next decade and leave a million
dollars of the new special endowment for the development of the new
building to house the hall.
I am hopeful, too, that the Roosevelt Memorial Hall, out of which
Roosevelt African Hall will open, is about to become a reality. The New
York State Legislature will soon have before it a bill to appropriate
two and one half million dollars for a memorial to New York's great
citizen. Such a building is one of two plans for this memorial now
under consideration by the State Roosevelt Memorial Commission and
there is much reason to hope that it may be favourably received by the
people of the state.
I ought not properly to be writing autobiographical matter. That is
usually a sign that a man is through and the truth is that I am just
ready to begin my work. So far I have been studying my profession.
Now I am prepared to practise it on one great example and in so doing
to train men to continue my work so that the museums of this country
can portray whatever of animal life they desire in a way that will
have the greatest attraction and instruction for the public, both lay
and scientific. It is chiefly in the hope of furthering that great
project which must be undertaken now--a project to put into permanent
and artistic form a complete record of the fast-disappearing animal
life of the last stronghold of the Age of Mammals--that I write these
things. Enough has been said to indicate that this is not one man's
task. It may not even be accomplished by several men in the span of one
man's life. But the future will show concrete results, for the slowest
and most laborious stages of preparation are now in the past. Years
of experimentation have perfected taxidermy, years of observation in
the field have made a true conception possible, the American Museum of
Natural History has committed itself to the plan--in a word, I am about
to realize my dream.