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In the first half of the 20th century an American couple from 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, 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 cultures thousands of miles away through their films, writings and lectures.

From 1917-1936, the Johnsons set up camp in some of the most remote areas of the world and provided an unmatched photographic record of the wildernesses of Kenya, the Congo, British North Borneo and the Solomon and New Hebrides Islands...Their equipment was the most advanced motion pictures apparatus of the day, some of it designed by Martin Johnson himself.

When the young adventurers left their home in Kansas to explore and photograph these lands, little did they realize that they would provide the world with a photographic record of the African game of unimagined magnitude and beauty...The Johnsons gave the filmmakers and researchers of today an important source of ethnological and zoological material which would otherwise have been lost.

Their photographs represent one of the great contributions to the pictorial history of the world...Their films serve to document a wilderness that has long since vanished, tribal cultures and customs that ceased to exist.

Through popular movies such as SIMBA (1928) and BABOONA (1935) and best-selling books still in print such as I Married Adventure (1940), Martin and Osa popularized camera safaris and an interest in African wildlife conservation for generations of Americans...Their legacy is a record of the animals and cultures of many remote areas of the world which have undergone significant changes.

The outstanding accomplishments and legacy of Martin and Osa Johnson - their films, photographs, expedition reports, correspondence and personal memorabilia - are housed here at The Martin and Osa Johnson Museum.




- Timeline -

Martin Johnson born (October 9) in Rochester, Illinois.  His family arrived in Lincoln, Kansas when Martin was just nine months old. 

1884

1894

 Osa Leighty born (March 14) in Chanute, KS.
Martin departs aboard Jack London's boat (April 23) 1907
1909 Martin returns to Independence, Kansas
Martin & Osa are married in Independence, Kansas (May 15) 1910
1917 Martin & Osa leave from San Francisco for their first South Seas trip (June 5)
Their first movie Among the Cannibals of the South Pacific premieres (July 21) 1918
1919 Martin & Osa leave on their second trip to the South Pacific (April 8)
Jungle Adventures premieres (September 11) 1921
1921 Martin, Osa and Martin's father arrive in Mombasa, Kenya for their first African safari (September)
Their film Trailing African Wild Animals is released (April 15) 1923
1924 Martin and Osa arrive in Kenya for their second safari. This trip is also known as Four Years in Paradise (January 26)
Martin and Osa sail from New York for their third trip to Africa (December 14) 1927
1928 Simba premieres (January 23)
Martin and Osa make their fourth trip to Africa which results in Congorilla; the first movie with sound shot in Africa (November) 1929
1930 The film Across the World with Mr & Mrs. Martin Johnson opens (January 1)
Congorilla opens (July 21) 1932
1933 Martin and Osa arrive in Africa for their fifth and final safari 
The Johnson's leave for Borneo, their last adventure together (August 12) 1935
1937 Martin dies of injuries sustained in a commercial plane crash in Burbank, California (January 13)
Osa passes away in New York City at the age of 58 (January 7) 1953
1961 The Martin and Osa Safari Museum opens in Chanute, Kansas (June 11)
The Safari Museum relocates to it's present location, the newly renovated Santa Fe depot 1993





© 2002 The Martin and Osa Johnson Safari Museum - All Rights Reserved