FOOTNOTE:
[2] Reprinted through courtesy of Harper & Bros., publishers of Du Chaillu's book, "Equatorial Africa."
CHAPTER XV 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.