Martin and Osa Johnson
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- For the rugby player Martin Johnson see Martin Johnson.
Martin Johnson (October 9, 1884 – January 13, 1937) and his wife Osa Johnson (née Leighty, March 14, 1894 – January 7, 1953) were adventurers from Kansas.
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[edit] Biography
In the first half of the 20th century an American couple from Chanute, Kansas named Martin and Osa Johnson captured the public's imagination through their films and books of adventure in exotic, far-away lands. Photographers, explorers, marketers, naturalists and authors, Martin and Osa studied the wildlife and peoples of East and Central Africa, the South Pacific Islands and British North Borneo. They explored then unknown lands and brought back knowledge of civilizations thousands of miles away through their films, writings and lectures.
Martin Johnson took part as a crew member and cook in Jack London's 1907–1909 voyage across the Pacific aboard the Snark. After that, he started a traveling road show that toured the United States displaying photographs and artifacts collected on the voyage. He met Osa Leighty while passing through her hometown of Chanute, Kansas, and they married. After seven years, Martin and Osa raised enough money to depart for new adventures, going first to the Solomon Islands, and later Borneo, and still later Africa.
Martin Johnson died in the crash of a Western Air Express commercial flight near Burbank, California in 1937; Osa was severely injured but recovered. By October, 1937, the New York Times was publishing dispatches of Osa's latest trip to Africa, in which she described lifestyles and practices of the Masai and other tribes.
She died in New York City of a heart attack in 1953.
[edit] Store
American Eagle Co. plans on opening a new line of stores named after Martin and Osa Johnson, called Martin and Osa. 5 stores are planned to open by the end of 2006 in select malls, with 10 to 15 more stores planned to open in 2007. The first store is currently scheduled to open at Tysons Corner, Virginia in early September,2006.
Storefronts will have wide entrances, but no windows. Rather than having windows to see inside, the exterior will be covered with wood and a strip of opaque blue glass. Inside the stores will have a natural materials theme, with plenty of wood and stone. The archetypal customer is a 30-year-old man or woman, but the new brand expects to attract people aged 25 to 40. The brand's tag line will be "Refresh, Replenish, Repeat" with a line underneath that reads "Please dispose of your old clothes properly." The message is meant to encourage buyers to bring in their old clothes to Martin and Osa which will redistribute them to charities.
[edit] The Martin and Osa Johnson Safari Museum
The Martin and Osa Johnson Safari Museum is located in Osa's hometown of Chanute, Kansas. Formed in 1961 to preserve the Johnsons' achievements and to encourage further research into their fields of study, the Safari Museum (as it was originally named) has grown and flourished. The museum started with a core collection of the Johnsons' films, photographs, manuscripts, articles, books, and personal belongings donated by Osa's mother. The museum shares the beautiful old railroad depot with the Chanute Library.
[edit] Selected filmography
- "Wonders of the Congo" (1931)
- "Congorilla" (1932)
- "Wings Over Africa" (1934)
- "Baboona" (1935)
- "Children of Africa: educational film" (1937)
- "Jungle Depths of Borneo" (1937)
- "Borneo" (1937)
- "Jungles Calling" (1937)
- "I Married Adventure" (1940)
- "African Paradise" (1941)
- "Tulagi and the Solomons" (1943)
- "Big Game Hunt" (1950s), on TV
[edit] The Books
Martin and Osa have written 18 books and 100 magazine articles about their adventure and lives, the most famous being "I Married Adventure" written by Osa Johnson after Martin passed away.
I Married Adventure
Osa Johnson has authored her autobiography named "I Married Adventure: Lives and Adventures of Martin and Osa Johnson". This book is a biography of Martin Johnson, written as a loving memorial by his wife shortly after his death in a plane crash. Martin, born in 1884, led a fascinating life. From Osa's descriptions of his school years, it sounds like if Martin had been an adolescent today, he might have been diagnosed with attention deficit disorder. He was obviously a very intelligent youth, but had no patience for sitting at a desk and studying topics that weren't of direct interest to him. He was quite taken with photography however, and established himself as a professional photographer while still in high school. He also had a lifelong love of travel, and he managed to spend several years in France while his peers were off in college or getting started in their careers. A lucky break with Jack London got Martin's career going. London hired Johnson as a cook for his ill-fated around-the-world sailing expedition. It was the photos that Johnson brought back from this trip that were to provide the original seed money for all the travels and photographic projects that were to occupy him the rest of his life.
Osa's story of meeting Johnson is incredibly wild. Before she knew it, she had eloped with this young man, and found herself at the tender age of 16 trying to see his dreams of travel adventure come true. Osa was considerably younger than Martin, and it was perhaps her youth that made their partnership work. Osa was still quite unexperienced when she began traveling with Martin, and was foolhardy in the face of danger, which any person would have to be in order to keep up with him and his crazy notions. Her youth probably also gave her the physical conditioning and stamina needed to run up mountains and away from cannibals. It's amazing to read of their adventures today, especially given their time in history, starting well before World War I.
Osa left school at 16 when she married Martin, but she nevertheless became a skilled writer. She was very much a product of her times, however, when it came to her attitudes towards non-Anglo-Saxon peoples. She seemed to look upon members of "primitive" races to be so far beneath her as to be just as appropriate as animals as subjects for their photographic studies. As for animals, although she repeated endlessly their desire to go on safari in order to photograph, not shoot animals, she blithely reports shooting a variety of game, both big and small during their African travels. As she tells it, she and Martin would set up the cameras and provoke animals to charge to they could capture the charges on film. If an animal came too close, however, they would of course have to "bring it down", be it a rhino, elephant, or lion. And they couldn't escape the responsibility of providing fresh meat for their native porters, so of course she had to develop her hunting skills and shot many a Thompson's gazelle along the trail. If you can set aside such flaws and stomach-turning gaffes, the book can be an amazing account of the lives of perhaps the most adventurous couple of recent times.
The most remarkable feature of this book are the passages describing the struggle and depression she underwent after the death of her beloved husband, Martin. It also describes how she recovered from the shock and depression followed by Martin's untimely demise. This book can be good gift for some body who has lost their loved ones.
