Blood, sweat, and skins—and cement, and cinema, and searchlights: Carl Akeley’s adventures in inventing

Abstract

Carl Akeley is a familiar figure in the world of museums, scientific exploration, conservation, and especially taxidermy—his innovations in that field in the early 20th century led peers to dub him ‘The Father of Modern Taxidermy’. But Akeley’s knack for innovation stretched far beyond mounting animal skins. As one colleague put it, ‘his practical mechanical resourcefulness was almost uncanny’. Akeley invented the ‘cement gun’ and sprayable concrete (aka ‘gunite’), a revolutionary movie camera embraced by Hollywood studios and documentarists, several ‘improved’ searchlight reflectors during World War I (when he was appointed a Consulting Engineer for the Army), and an assortment of other devices—more than 30 patents in all. One common thread tied all these efforts together: envisioning a problem, and devising a solution. This article presents an account of Carl Akeley’s inventive side, describing the wide array of inventions that grew from his natural mechanical aptitude, and his tireless passion to fabricate, and then improve.