Human zoo

The term "human zoo" was not generally used by contemporaries of the shows, and was popularised by the French researcher Pascal Blanchard. The term has been criticised for denying the agency of the shows' non-European performers.^[6]

According to Sandra Koutsoukos, the term "human zoos" was likely coined by French historians and anthropologists and first appeared in a 2002 publication. It is widely used in academia to critique the inhumanity and racism of events that displayed people from cultures deemed "exotic" or "savage".^[7]

Public displays of people predated the ethnological exhibitions that became common during the nineteenth century.^[8]

One of the earliest recorded examples was the zoo of Moctezuma in central Mexico, which contained not only a large collection of animals but also people, including dwarfs, albinos and hunchbacks. During the Renaissance, the Medici family maintained large menageries in Italy. In the 16th century, Cardinal Hippolytus Medici reportedly kept people from many different backgrounds alongside exotic animals, including individuals described as "Savages", as well as Moors, Tartars, Indians, Turks and Africans.^[9]

In 1691, Jeoly, a tattooed man from Miangas, was purchased by the English explorer William Dampier while he was in Mindanao and exhibited in London. Dampier also intended to exhibit Jeoly's mother, but she died at sea before reaching England. Jeoly was marketed as "Prince Giolo" and remained on display for three months before dying of smallpox.^[10]

One of the first modern public human exhibitions was P. T. Barnum's exhibition of Joice Heth on 25 February 1835, followed by exhibitions of Chang and Eng Bunker, the conjoined twins later known as the Siamese twins. Such exhibitions were common in circuses and freak shows.^[11][12] Saartjie Baartman, of the Nama people, was exhibited in Britain and France under the name "Hottentot Venus" until her death in 1815.

During the 1850s, Maximo and Bartola, two microcephalic siblings from El Salvador, were exhibited in Europe and the United States under the names "Aztec Children" and "Aztec Lilliputians". Human zoos became common during the 1870s, in the period of New Imperialism.^[13][14]

During the 1870s, public displays of individual people increasingly gave way to larger ethnological exhibitions featuring communities and groups of people. As European colonial empires expanded, these exhibitions became increasingly common across Europe and North America. Organizers promoted them as educational or scientific displays, but they often portrayed Indigenous peoples and other colonized groups as representatives of supposedly "primitive" cultures.^[14]

One of the leading promoters of this new style of exhibition was German animal trader Carl Hagenbeck. In 1874, at the suggestion of German painter and illustrator Heinrich Leutemann, he organized an exhibition of Sámi people that differed from earlier displays by recreating what organizers presented as their "natural environment". People were exhibited alongside animals, plants, and reconstructed buildings intended to resemble their homelands, creating the impression that visitors were encountering distant cultures firsthand.^[15][16] Hagenbeck later organized exhibitions featuring Nubians in 1876 and Inuit in 1880.^[17]

During the following decades, ethnological exhibitions became a regular feature of zoological gardens, colonial exhibitions, and world's fairs across Europe and North America. At the Jardin d'Acclimatation, a zoological garden in Paris, exhibitions featuring Nubian and Inuit began in 1877 and attracted large audiences. Between 1877 and 1912, approximately thirty ethnological exhibitions were presented there.^[18]

By the end of the 19th century, human zoos had become a common feature of world's fairs, colonial exhibitions, and zoological gardens throughout Europe and North America.^[15]

Human zoos often reduced people to racial, cultural, or physical "types" for observation and study. Women were frequently sexualized, while both women and men were photographed, classified, examined, or displayed in ways that emphasized perceived difference and exoticism.^[19][20]

One of the best-known examples is Saartjie Baartman, often referred to as the "Hottentot Venus". During the early 19th century, Baartman was exhibited in Britain and France, where promoters emphasized her body and portrayed her as a racialized curiosity. Visitors were encouraged to inspect and touch her, particularly her buttocks, which were presented as evidence of supposed physical difference. After her death in 1815, her remains were dissected and displayed at the Musée de l'Homme in Paris without her consent.^[20]

Historian Dominika Czarnecka argues that the popularity of ethnographic exhibitions often depended on the sexualization of non-European women. Writing about exhibitions in late 19th-century Poland, she notes that women were often dressed in revealing costumes that reflected European expectations and fantasies rather than the clothing of the cultures they were claimed to represent. Although some were depicted as Amazon warriors, contemporary accounts frequently focused on their appearance and clothing.^[21]

At the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893 and the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo in 1901, the belly dancer Little Egypt was photographed as a catalogued "type" by Charles Dudley Arnold and Harlow Higinbotham.^[22]

By the 1930s, a new form of human exhibition appeared in the United States as nude shows presented as educational exhibits. At the Zoro Garden Nudist Colony at the Pacific International Exposition in San Diego, California (1935–1936), hired performers portrayed members of a nudist colony rather than actual nudists. At the Sally Rand Nude Ranch at the Golden Gate International Exposition in San Francisco (1939), women appeared wearing cowboy hats, gunbelts, and boots, with little other clothing. The exposition also featured a "Greenwich Village" show, described in the official guidebook as a "Model artists' colony and revue theatre".^[23]

People could also be exhibited after death. Angelo Soliman, a man of Central African origin who became a prominent figure in Viennese society, was displayed after his death. His preserved body was exhibited in Vienna as an ethnographic specimen.^[24]

Human zoos were closely associated with scientific racism during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Exhibitions were often presented as educational or scientific displays and were used to classify human populations according to perceived levels of cultural and biological development.^[4]

Many exhibitions portrayed non-European peoples as living examples of an earlier stage of human development. Organizers recreated villages and daily activities that were presented as "natural" or "primitive", while displays emphasized stereotypes of cultural inferiority and the supposed superiority of Western societies.^[5][2] Such displays supported imperialist narratives and were used to justify the subjugation of colonized peoples.^[27]

In Germany, ethnological exhibitions and museums were promoted as educational institutions. Human displays were incorporated into zoological and anthropological exhibits, where visitors were encouraged to compare different cultures and societies. By the late 19th century, some exhibitions presented human groups as occupying different positions on an evolutionary scale, with Western Europeans portrayed as the most advanced.^[28][4]

Human zoos at international expositions and world's fairs were often used to demonstrate contemporary ideas about race, civilization, and human progress. At the Louisiana Purchase Exposition of 1904, organizers exhibited Indigenous peoples from around the world in displays intended to illustrate contemporary theories of race, civilization, and human progress.^[25] Associated events such as "Anthropology Days" compared participants through athletic competitions that organizers linked to contemporary ideas about race, civilization, and human progress.^[29][30]

During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, world's fairs, colonial exhibitions, and other international events helped popularize human zoos in Europe and North America. Many were organized by imperial powers and featured people brought from their colonies. Participants were often housed in reconstructed villages and displayed performing daily activities for visitors.^[5][14]

By the late 19th century, human displays had become a common feature of major international exhibitions. At the 1889 Paris World's Fair, approximately 400 Indigenous people were displayed in a "Negro Village", one of the exposition's most popular attractions. Visited by 28 million people, the fair exposed large audiences to staged representations of Indigenous and colonized peoples.^[31][2] Similar exhibits appeared at international exhibitions in Amsterdam, Chicago, Brussels, and Buffalo.^[14][31]

At the Louisiana Purchase Exposition of 1904 in St. Louis, more than 1,100 Filipinos were exhibited, while thousands of Indigenous people from around the world participated in anthropological exhibits and cultural demonstrations.^[29][25] Associated events such as Anthropology Days reflected contemporary ideas about race, civilization, and human progress.^[29][30]

Human displays continued to appear at major exhibitions throughout the first half of the 20th century, including the British Empire Exhibition of 1924, the Paris Colonial Exposition of 1931, the Portuguese World Exhibition of 1940, and Expo 58 in Brussels.^[2][32]

Although exhibition practices varied between countries, organizers, and venues, many human zoos of the late 19th and early 20th centuries shared common methods of staging, presentation, and interpretation.^[14][5] People exhibited in human zoos were commonly presented as living representatives of cultures portrayed as "primitive", "exotic", or fundamentally different from those of the societies hosting the exhibitions.^[14][5]

Reconstructed villages were among the most common features of human zoos. People on display were often housed in settings intended to represent their homelands, with traditional-style dwellings, plants, animals, and household objects arranged to create the impression of an authentic environment. During the 1870s, German animal trader Carl Hagenbeck popularized this approach by exhibiting people alongside animals and scenery intended to recreate their "natural environment". Similar reconstructed villages later appeared at the 1904 Bradford Exhibition, where Somali families lived in a purpose-built village, and at the 1887 Philippine Exposition in Madrid, where buildings and landscapes were designed to evoke the Philippines.^[5][33][34]

Many people on display performed activities presented as representative of their cultures, including cooking, craftwork, music, dance, hunting, and other aspects of daily life. These performances reinforced contemporary ideas about cultural difference. At the Scottish National Exhibition of 1908 in Edinburgh, for example, residents of the Senegal Village demonstrated crafts and aspects of everyday life while living in beehive huts. Similar demonstrations also formed part of other ethnographic exhibitions.^[5][35]

Official guidebooks, exhibition catalogues, and labels frequently identified people on display by ethnicity, nationality, or colonial origin, shaping how visitors understood the exhibits. At the British Empire Exhibition of 1924, for example, the official guide listed participants by colonial origin and approximate numbers as part of its description of the exhibition.^[2]

The experiences of people exhibited in human zoos varied considerably. Some travelled under contracts as paid performers, while others had little control over how they were presented or the conditions under which they lived. During Expo 58 in Brussels, members of the Congolese village protested the condescending treatment they received from spectators and demanded to return home, bringing the exhibit to an early end.^[36] In Germany, some performers who remained after ethnological exhibitions ended were unable to return home and later faced discrimination under the Nazi regime.^[37]

According to The New York Times, although "few expressed audible objection to the sight of a human being in a cage with monkeys as companions", controversy erupted as black clergymen in the city took great offense. "Our race, we think, is depressed enough, without exhibiting one of us with the apes", said the Reverend James H. Gordon, superintendent of the Howard Colored Orphan Asylum in Brooklyn. "We think we are worthy of being considered human beings, with souls."^[71]

New York City Mayor George B. McClellan Jr. refused to meet with the clergymen, drawing the praise of Hornaday, who wrote to him: "When the history of the Zoological Park is written, this incident will form its most amusing passage."^[71]

As the controversy continued, Hornaday remained unapologetic, insisting that his only intention was to put on an ethnological exhibition. In another letter, he said that he and Grant—who ten years later would publish the racist tract The Passing of the Great Race—considered it "imperative that the society should not even seem to be dictated to" by the black clergymen.^[71]

1903 saw one of the first widespread protests against human zoos, at the "Human Pavilion" of an exposition in Osaka, Japan. The exhibition of Koreans and Okinawans in "primitive" housing incurred protests from the governments of Korea and Okinawa, and a Formosan woman wearing Chinese dress angered a group of Chinese students studying abroad in Tokyo. An Ainu schoolteacher was made to exhibit himself in the zoo to raise money for his schoolhouse, as the Japanese government refused to pay. The fact that the schoolteacher made eloquent speeches and fundraised for his school while wearing traditional dress confused the spectators. An anonymous front-page column in a Japanese magazine condemned these examples and the "Human Pavilion" in total, calling it inhumane to exhibit people as spectacles.^[72]

With a view to tackling the morality of Human Zoo exhibits, 2018 saw the poster exhibition, Putting People on Display, tour Glasgow School of Art, the University of Edinburgh, the University of Stirling, the University of St Andrews and the University of Aberdeen. Additional posters were added to a selection from the French ACHAC's exhibition, Human Zoos: the Invention of the Savage, in relation to the Scottish dimension in hosting such shows.^[73]

In the 2008 The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (film), Button befriends a Pygmy named Ngunda Oti who was formerly held at the Philadelphia Zoological Park.

The Lone Ranger (2013 film) is narrated by an elderly Tonto who is on display in a San Francisco museum.