Guest post by Maddi Brenner
The First of Many Zoos
The public zoo we know of today began as far
back as the 18th century when Europeans believed in obtaining new
avenues of knowledge and developing their role in science, reason and logic.
The first zoo, then known as a zoological garden or park, was created in Paris,
France in 1793 and continued its expansion to other nations in Europe. Historically,
zoos emerged from several individuals involved in the hunting, trading,
capturing, exhibiting and breeding of animals. A
prominent example and figure that “older generations of Americans might remember”
was Carl Hagenbeck.
According to Nigel Rothfels, Hagenbeck revolutionized zoo design, its commercial
business and the fundamental practices of zoos.
A Pioneer of Zoo Curation and Practices
Born in 1844 in Hamburg, Germany, Carl Hagenbeck
was a German merchant of wild animals and grew up alongside his father, Carl
Hagenbeck Sr., as a fishmonger. As he grew older and increasingly interested in
animals and the world, Hagenbeck began his travels to other countries,
including but not limited to Egypt, Polynesia, Norway, Sweden and Finland. Around
1875, Hagenbeck traded his first “exotic” animals to zoos across Europe and the
United States, where he combined his interest in commercial business and his
love for showcasing to local folk. Carl Hagenbeck was so successful in his
pursuit of animals and business that he used his skills to plan his own permanent
zoo exhibit, then named the Park at Stellingen in Hamburg, Germany. Daily,
Hagenbeck journaled various methods and practices regarding the capturing and
training of animals at the zoo. Highlights included animal trade, animal captivity
and hunting, training wild animals and breeding. The first printing occurred in
1909, was named Beasts and Men: Being Carl Hagenbeck’s Experiences for Half
a Century Among Wild Animals, with additional narratives and
re-prints continuing until around 1912. Today, the book is still available and now
translated into English and various other languages.
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| source: https://collections.si.edu/search/results.htm?q=record_ID=siris_arc_399471&repo=DPLA |
Arguably, Hagenbeck was one of the most
famous European leaders in zoo development. P. Chalmers Mitchell, secretary of
the Zoological Society of London, reported Carl Hagenbeck as a prestigious figure
with candor and stamina for animal trade and the zoo business. He described Hagenbeck
as a “lover of animals and the greatest trainer” he’d ever seen. His
success and fame were so iconic that many animal traders and zoo directors
across the world utilized his techniques. His popularity became known as the Hagenbeck
Revolution, where his work resembled that “of a showman more than of a
naturalist.”
In his memoir, Hagenbeck portrays his relationship with animals as one of
curiosity and patience. He mentions his laborious training of sea lions and bears,
along with his firm belief that animals held in captivity needed care and sanctuary.
However, whether those feelings were for the actual good and nurturing of the animals,
or due to his imperative need for breeding and animal trade to ensure business growth,
is certainly up for debate.
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| Source: https://vintagraph.com/products/carl-hagenbecks-tierpark-stellingen?variant=12462662877286 |
The
opening of the Park of Stellingen, today known as Tierpark Hagenbeck enabled
Hagenbeck to explore various visual elements for animal exhibits. Most familiar
and common today was a Panorama exhibit, which included barless habitats and revealed
the animal in its more natural state using similar visuals of what one would
see in the wild. These exhibits also gave zoos the opportunity to house many different
animals in the same vicinity. With a moat that surrounded the landscape,
animals could be viewed more easily (without bars). As Rothfels notes, these
exhibits pointed to an illusion that allowed a visitor to idealize the world within
the zoo itself. Hagenbeck
“wanted to create an animal paradise which would show animals from all lands
and climatological zones in a manner suitable to their life conditions, not
from behind bars and fences.”
His concepts and unique variety revolutionized the practice of zoo design and
made him known as the inventor of the modern-day park. Tierpark Hagenbeck
is still open today and has remained part of the Hagenbeck family business for
more than 110 years. It is managed by the sixth generation of the Hagenbeck
lineage and holds over 1,800 animals with 200 different species.
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| source: https://cdm17210.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/lpe/id/3389 |
Human Zoos and the Legacy of Hagenbeck
Hagenbeck considered himself an “ethnographic
showman” who believed that humans, typically of African and Asian descent were also
valuable for show. Hagenbeck presented people from various foreign countries to
a European audience, including “Sami, Nubians, Inuits, Somalis, East Indians
and other representatives of distant countries had to stage their everyday life
and their cultures.” In
his memoir, Beasts and Men, Hagenbeck writes to his experience of ethnographic
exhibitions as a lucrative enterprise that he believed would “indubitably cause
a great sensation.” Similarly,
he corresponds, “I bethought me of the Eskimos, those dwellers in the Artic of
whom we had all heard so much connection with polar expeditions, but who had
never yet been seen in the heart of Europe. It might be possible, I thought, to
bring a small party of these people to Hamburg.”
Hagenbeck believed with a purpose that his
role in showcasing humans was righteous and just. He imagined he had a
responsibility to organize “frequent ethnographic exhibitions,” and wrote in
his memoir, “one of the largest of all my ethnographic exhibitions was the
great Cingalese exhibition of 1894. This great caravan, which consisted of
sixty-seven persons with twenty-five elephants and a multitude of cattle of
various breeds, caused a great sensation in Europe. I travelled about with this
show all over Germany and Austria and made a very good thing out of it.” With
success of these shows across Europe, Hagenbeck believed these shows formulated
and enriched “new forms of entertainment that fostered a revolution in the
methods of training wild beasts for the zoo.”
Those on display were working performers with
tight schedules and little pay. Having been convinced to move from their home, these
individuals and/or families often experienced traumatic, tiring and poor
working conditions. For instance, “in 1880... an Inuit family on display died
of smallpox because they had not been vaccinated. A group of Sioux Indians also
died, of consumption, measles and pneumonia.” Similarly,
the parents of Theodor Wonja Michael traveled across Europe in exhibition as
performers, after his father realized there weren’t many jobs being offered to
a German of Cameroonian descent. Michael
recounts the experiences of his father, while speaking about his own
experiences dancing and performing for an audience. He explains that the
exhibits portrayed these cultures as “Africans: uneducated, bast-skirted and
cultureless savages.” In a recent interview, 94-year-old Theodor Wonja Michael
remembers being sniffed and gawked at while on display, including his speaking of
broken German and/or sign language. After
Carl Hagenbeck died in 1913, his sons, Heinrich and Lorenz took over the zoo
and circus business, continuing the human exhibits. Their last show of humans was
in 1931, about 6 years after Theodor Wonja Michael was born into working these exhibitions.
Hagenbeck’s influence on modern zoo design
was revolutionary. He remains one of the most famous leaders in zoo practices not
only in Europe, but across the world. Yet, his legacy does live on in more ways
than one. With recognition of his contribution to the success of zoos, awareness
of his exploitation and ignorance at the expense of marginalized communities must
also be. He used his privilege to perform incidents of power over people that
cannot and should not be ignored. Today, there is strong criticism of zoo
history and of Carl Hagenbeck, himself, who as a pioneer in zoo practices was
also characterized as a deeply ignorant individual that supported the actions
of bigotry. Much scholarship and recent contemporary articles shed light on Hagenbeck’s
relationship with animals and humans. For better or for worse, we can use the
historical narrative of Hagenbeck to acknowledge how we remember and understand
the role of his work at zoos and in representation of various cultures today.
Epilogue: A Reflection on Hagenbeck and the Milwaukee
County Zoo
At the Milwaukee County Zoo, habitat practices
and modern zoo design were likely inspired by Carl Hagenbeck. During the 1920s
and 30s, the Milwaukee County Zoo, then known as the Washington Park Zoo,
replicated Hagenbeck-style exhibits with barless habitats, moats and natural
views of the animals. At
the time, it was Director Edward Bean who fully embraced the performance of
natural habitats in zoos and believed this type of display could enrich the
experience of zoo-goers and animals. In similar ways, Bean and Hagenbeck both utilized
showcase techniques that sought the enrichment of animals on display. Bean’s practices
involved similar variations to Hagenbeck and ultimately transformed the ways in
which the Milwaukee County Zoo is developed today.
Reference
Hagenbeck, Carl. Beasts and Men, Being
Carl Hagenbeck's Experiences for Half a Century among Wild Animals. London:
Longmans, Green, and Co., 1912.
Reucher, Gaby. “A Life against Racism: Theodor Wonja
Michael.” DW.com. October 22, 2019:
https://www.dw.com/en/a-life-against-racism-theodor-wonja-michael/a-50935425.
Rothfels, Nigel. Savages and Beasts: The
Birth of the Modern Zoo. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002.
Theodor, Michael and Eve Rosenhaft. Black
German: An Afro-German Life in the Twentieth Century. Liverpool: Liverpool
University Press. 2017.
Zeitler,
Anika and Rayna Breuer. “Carl Hagenbeck: The Inventor of the Modern Animal Park.”
DW.com. November 6, 2019: https://www.dw.com/en/carl-hagenbeck-the-inventor-of-the-modern-animal-park/a-49106027.
“Zoological
Garden.” Encyclopedia.com. May 21, 2018: https://www.encyclopedia.com/plants-and-animals/zoology-and-veterinary-medicine/zoology-general/zoological-garden.
