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In the George Eastman Museum NARRATOR 1 Hear You Are: In the George Eastman Museum. SFX: sounds of the museum begin Once the home of the founder of Kodak,it’s interior drips with wealth. Lime washed wooden panels, marble floors, crystal glassware and exotic plants furnish every inch of the multi-million dollar mansion. Lining the halls are richly colored fabrics and priceless rugs, glistening chandeliers and sizeable paintings. NARRATOR 2 Windows adorn every corridor and fill the space with natural light, giving visitors the chance to view Eastman’s personal courtyard. Complete with a terrace garden, ivy embroidered arches, and a quaint frog pond in the center, the eight and a half acre property feels open, yet serene at the same time. SFX: Sounds of the museum end NARRATOR 1 The museum has done its best to preserve the wonder of the estate, guiding visitors through Eastman’s many rooms with purple velvet ropes and mementos of his own personal collections. But no matter how impressive the mansion itself may be, one feature catches your eye unlike anything else: a giant elephant head. NARRATOR 2 As visitors are guided into Eastman’s conservatory, the elephant in the room is quite clear. Not a painting, not a statue, and certainly not your typical house decoration, George Eastman mounted an adult 1 bull elephant head high above the first floor. Shot by Eastman, taxidermied locally, and displayed proudly in the largest room of the estate, the elephant head is George Eastman’s proud reminder to all that enter his home: “I bested that animal.” NARRATOR 1 As the centerpiece of the living room, the elephant is a reminder. While barely a fraction of Eastman’s hunting trophies it is clear he saw it as his greatest. The prominence of the bull elephant distracts visitors from another fact: the mansion is a mausoleum of dead African wildlife. SFX: footsteps begin As you walk deeper into the house you arrive in his game room, SFX: footsteps continue and animal noises begin decorated with a cheetah pelt couch cover, an antelope hoof ashtray, and a muskrat fur blanket. A desk with a rhino skin stretched over it sits in the room next door, offset by the elephant foot spitoon and rhino foot vase. Travelling upwards, you pass the second floor for a closer view of the goliath elephant head, and move up towards the third and final floor. There, you are greeted by the mounted heads of a boar, gazelle, rhino, water buffalo, and lion. And that’s when it hits you: SFX: noises end 2 Eastman’s house is stuffed with dead animals. SFX: music starts NARRATOR 2 But why did he keep all of these animals around? And how did he get them? Eastman was a busy man with a knack for photography, but his passion for hunting is abundantly clear from the moment you see that elephant’s head. So where does that passion come from? Did he want to preserve certain species or hang them as trophies? NARRATOR 1 I’m Sam Narrator 2 And I’m Chloe NARRATOR 1 And this is Hear UR. Episode 5. Lived By The Will. NARRATOR 2 Today we will be looking into Eastman’s appetite for trophy hunting and the steps he took to preserve the animals he saw fit to display. With two safaris, thousands of hunted species, years of detailed journal entries, and numerous taxidermied animals, Eastman was a man that got what he wanted. George Eastman lived by the will. Barb Tuttle George Eastman was born in 1854 in Waterville, NY. SFX: music ends Waterville is way east of here south of Utica, NY. Narrator 2 That’s Barb Tuttle, a Rochester local and guide at the George Eastman Museum. 3 Barb Tuttle He was the youngest of three children. He had two older sisters, Emma Kate and Ellen Maria. And his dad George Washington Eastman, and his mom Maria Kilbourn Eastman, um had a nursery specializing in fruit trees and rose bushes. Narrator 1 In 1888 George Eastman founded his camera company, Kodak which eventually turned ​ ​ Eastman into the 5th wealthiest person in the U.S. Eastman was an avid sportsman and enjoyed being in the outdoors,he had a love for fishing and hunting. He believed in the philosophy that “What we do in our working hours determines what we have in this world; what we do in our play hours determines what we are.” SFX: noises of tracking animals begins NARRATOR 1 Eastman championed triumph over conservation. Despite his hunting license often being granted to him on the basis of museum donation, Eastman thoroughly believed that the animals he tracked were his trophies. His detailed journal entries favored the exhilaration of the hunt and the sensation of shooting big game. His descriptions were rich in detail, sometimes lasting pages describing one encounter; yet, once the animal was shot dead, SFX: gun shot, animal noises end Eastman loses all interest. NARRATOR 2 He documents their moving of camps often. They were always following the best animals, and he even shortened his stay in Nairobi specifically to move and get bigger game such as elephants, buffalo, and rhinos. He describes one camp as.. 4 EASTMAN VOICE ACTOR The ideal place to hunt, kill, or murder the wild animals. NARRATOR 2 For Eastman, a dead animal wasn’t much of an animal at all. It was an object for him to display. In fact, George Eastman believed that animal’s existed for man’s use. He wasn’t generally concerned with animal endangerment, hunting the animals that he found suitable at any time he pleased. On the second of his two safaris, Eastman stayed an extra 7 months after reaching his hunting quota; killing over 1000 animals on his own. His house showcases his trophies, with elephant feet and antelope hooves being crafted into home decor, along with cheetah pelts and rodent skins sewn into blankets. Barb Tuttle This is a really nice elephant hoof ashtray. They had these things all over the house. At least they used the animal for something back then. NARRATOR 1 Despite the fact that he was known to have constantly been documenting life around him through pictures, George Eastman, at age 72, still wrote and published every piece of his safari travels. From the mundane to the thrilling, Eastman wanted someone to remember what he was doing in Africa. SFX: truck driving starts EASTMAN VOICE ACTOR “Audley and I have now gotten nearly all the trophies here we want except a few more lions. All the animals, SFX: truck noises end except perhaps the lion can run like the wind for long distances, and it is very hard to get a shot at them closer than 200 to 300 5 yards. I Hope to get a very interesting affair and some excitement.” NARRATOR 1 To help explain the extent of Eastman’s hunting journal, George Eastman House Curator, Kathy Connor weighs in on the extent of his daily reports. Kathy Connor Um he published two books. One was when he was still alive and he gave it out to friends, to um to tell about his experiences in Africa, as it was very unusual to go there especially at his age. Um and photograph and take movies of all of this and hunt and bring back the animal trophies and it was very expensive so that’s why it was just a old, old rich white guys sport type of thing. But through the pictures and his writing, his little oral histories and his letters to his secretary about what they were doing each day kinda like a diary, those books became very popular. And he ended up printing about fifteen hundred of them, and then giving them out to his staff so if people asked about the trip, rather than trying to explain things he would hand them a book. If there were friends or other people and they didn’t work with him at Kodak, he had a few others published that he hand wrote a little inscription for them. NARRATOR 2 And there’s good reason to believe that at this point in his life, Eastman was considering his legacy. Eastman often bragged about his hunts in his journal entries claiming that he had done some of “the best quail shooting” of his life in Africa. He recorded the comments of others praising him as well. Colleague and friend Leslie Tarlton, said that Eastman’s collection was “the finest he has seen in a while.” SFX: bird noises begin 6 Despite his age, Eastman always wanted to come out on top, constantly comparing himself and his trophies to the rest of the group. SFX: Sounds of an elephant in the distance, careful footsteps, one shot is taken sounds end and Teddy Roosevelt begins talking Teddy Roosevelt The leader for the time being, whoever he may be, is but an instrument, to be used until broken and then to be cast aside. SFX: Roosevelt stops talking NARRATOR 1 Eastman was an avid admirer of Teddy Roosevelt. His entire first safari in Africa was mapped out to mimic a trip Roosevelt had previously taken. He planned to return with an elephant and white rhino as Roosevelt did. When Eastman did not achieve this goal he planned his second safari shortly after returning home. It was not only in his safari plans that Eastman showcased his admiration for Roosevelt, but as well as within his home. Barb Tuttle He contracted with an architectural firm out of New York City called McKim, Mead & White and they were the premiere architects in the U.S at the turn of the century.
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