Carl E.Akeley was born on May 19th, 1864, on a farm near Clarendon, New York. At the age of thirteen, Akeley became interested in birds and by his own admission stated that he felt much out of place on the farm as he was more interested in taxidermy than farming. With the aid of a borrowed book Akeley was able to teach himself the procedures of taxidermy up to a point where he felt justified in having business cards printed announcing that he did "artistic taxidermy in all its branches.'' In the fall of 1883 at the age of 19, he decided to widen his interests in the field of taxidermy. Over in the nearby town of Brockport there was an Englishman by the name of David Bruce whose hobby it was to do taxidermy. Akeley went to see Bruce thinking that he may be hired to work in his painter and decorator business, as it had not dawned upon him that someone might actually earn a living from taxidermy, but instead Bruce advised a young Akeley to apply for a job with the famous Wards Natural Science Establishment in Rochester New York. Akeley followed that advice and was subsequently hired by the owner, Professor Henry J Ward at the starting salary of $3.50 a week.
The art of taxidermy as practiced at Wards was very simple by any standards, yet typical of the era. To stuff an animal the skin would first be treated with salt, alum and arsenical soap, the bones wired and wrapped and put back inside the legs, and once hung upside down, the skin literally stuffed with straw until it could hold no more. To thin the body at any point, the skin would be sewn through with a long needle and the hide drawn in. Other shapes or contours would be achieved of this 'upholstered' specimen, simply by beating the detail into the mount with a plank of wood. Akeley left this establishment briefly for a period of six months to work with New York taxidermist John Wallace following a misunderstanding that led to his dismissal from Wards. 'A more dreary six months l never had spent anywhere' described Akerleys time at Wallaces Taxidermy of New York. So when Henry Ward came after Carl declaring that his dismissal had all been an erroneous mistake, he happily returned to his former employer and stayed a further 3 years. But Carl found little inspiration at Wards. He was critical that much of the work lacked any anatomical accuracy and that there was little attempt by the establishment to put the animals into natural attitudes.
Grouping was unheard of and habitat or 'accessories' as it was called, was seldom considered in conjunction with the mount. For an occupation that he had chosen because of its stimulation of a man's soul in the arts and science, he found little if any of these virtues present in the commercial application. During that time, Carl not content with the current methods of mammal taxidermy began to experiment with those of his own and he was soon able to develop procedures of big-game taxidermy that were to revolutionize the process and standards of taxidermy to come.
On one occasion when an opportunity to trial large mammal carcass casting techniques presented itself in the form of a life-size zebra, he set about skinning and molding the body in his own time, a process that took him from evening to dawn to complete. He managed to remove the entire skin through one incision to the belly and smaller cuts to the lower legs. Nevertheless the following day he found that someone had opened the zebra skin up entirely and in due course it was mounted in the old way and his casts thrown out onto the dump
Offered an opportunity to further his education through the courtesy of a former employee to Wards now teaching at a High School in Milwaukee, Akerley left Wards and took a position in the Museum to support his educational expenses. It became the turning point of Carl's career where over the eight years that he worked at the museum he was able put into practice many of the ideas he had theorized over during his tenure at Wards.
During his time at the museum, Carl not content with the method employed of straw, rag and bone stuffing began to experiment in the production of lightweight, detailed manikins through sculpturing and casting processes. His first project involved the portrayal of a Laplander driving a caribou sled over the snow. This fairly successful project was followed up by another exhibit involving Orangutans collected in Borneo. Overall, they made a good deal of progress in this process at the museum.
In making these groups, Carl abandoned the ways of the old stuffer and set about to make realistic manikins over which to stretch an animal's skin. Whilst sculpturing had been developed for many years through the art of bronze casting, manikin making was a new technique and had to be created comparatively quickly by very few people. Akerley continued to work out new and more modern methods in taxidermy while at the Milwaukee Public museum and is credited with designing and constructing what is known as a habitat group during his tenure. He remained with the museum for eight years then another twist of fate changed the course of his life. Due to his outstanding work in both taxidermy and museum exhibit's, he was offered a position with the British Museum in London. He accepted and on his way there decided to stop off in Chicago for a visit to the Field Museum of Natural History, which had only recently been founded.
In the Museum of Natural History in NYC the Akeley Hall of African Mammals is considered by many to be among the world's greatest museum displays. A monument to an area that has dramatically changed, the Hall is also a monument to Carl Akeley, the innovator who created it. Akeley was a dedicated explorer, taxidermist, sculptor, and photographer who led teams of scientists and artists on several expeditions to Africa during the first two decades of this century. There, he and his colleagues carefully studied, catalogued, and collected the plants and animals that even then were disappearing. He brought many specimens of that world back to the Museum, where he created this hall, with its twenty-eight dioramas.
The dioramas do not simply evoke the sites that Akeley visited -- they replicate specific animals in specific geographic locations at a specific time. In creating these works, Akeley forever changed the practice of taxidermy -- the stuffing and mounting of the skins of animals. Until then animal skins had been stuffed with straw or wood shavings. Akeley, however, began by re-creating the animal's shape with an armature made of wood, wire, and sometimes parts of the actual skeleton. He then used clay to add on each muscle, tendon, and vein. When this work was complete, he made a cast of it, and fit the animal's skin over the cast. This meticulous attention to veracity -- which was carried over to the plant forms and even to the light in the dioramas -- resulted in faithful and vivid reproductions of the world that Akeley wanted to preserve. Carl Akeley died on an African expedition in 1926, ten years before this hall was completed. He was buried in a place depicted in the Hall's famous Gorilla Diorama. While we have learned a great deal about mammals and their world since Akeley's day, and we no longer collect animal specimens as Akeley did, his vision and his desire to preserve the world he lived in still inform much of the work done at the Museum.
Carl Ethan Akeley was determined to raise taxidermy to the level of "high" art. Working at the American Museum of Natural History, he began to model clay maquettes to create accurate life-sized animal dioramas. In the process, he began to bring taxidermy to new heights. With the encouragement of financier J. P. Morgan and the famed sculptor Alexander Phimster Proctor, he cast the first of the little clay groups into bronze in 1913. That first work was Wounded Comrade, a cast of which is in the NMWA collection.
Interesting article published by "The Times" recounting an expidition by a Victorian Taxidermist C.E.Akerley, 1905
"Kneeling on the leopard's stomach and holding the forelegs apart with his elbows, the gasping taxidermist loosened his grip on the animal's throat for a short breathing-spell. Almost immediately, he marked a flash of new light in the glaring golden eyes, and the battle went on as before, man against beast, brain and muscle against brute force." Thus did C. E. Akerley, an unarmed taxidermist on a zoological expedition to British Somaliland in 1898, beat the stuffing out of a ferocious African leopard. Akerley had been bitten and clawed to shreds before he finally succeeded in throttling the enraged carnivore. "The big cat's body grew limp, and for the first time in history one of great jungle felines succumbed in fair fight to a weaponless man." Akerley was photographed, his arms in bandages, standing alongside the strangled leopard; he eyes his former adversary with deep suspicion, as if the animal might yet return to life, and bite his head off. Akerley's historic bout with the Somali leopard is just one of many similar accounts of male bravado that appeared in the pages of The Wide World, a magazine of true adventures for men, which flourished between 1898 and 1965.
While in Africa, George Eastman (Founder of the Kodak Company) met with Carl Akeley, a naturalist and taxidermist from the United States. Akeley was collecting specimens to begin the African Hall for the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. These meetings secured the inclusion of donations from Eastman's safari for the museum's collections. Eastman went on a second safari, up the Nile to Uganda, in 1928. On this trip, he bagged two of his most highly prized trophies, a white rhinoceros and an elephant. When he returned to Rochester, Eastman displayed the head of the elephant in the conservatory of his house. A replica is exhibited in its original location in the mansion. Eastman enjoyed his many traveling adventures. After he returned from his second trip to Africa however, he was diagnosed with a progressive and irreversible spinal disease. On March 14, 1932, Eastman ended his own life. In a note to friends, Eastman wrote, "My work is done. Why wait?"
For more information on this subject please visit www.victorian-taxidermy.com
