Thinking like Otto Kuehn

Guest Post by James Trefry

Learning and constructing a character for a Twitter re-enactment challenges someone to look at an individual’s actions and illustrate them as thoughts. For Otto Kuehn, using the archives was ideal to track every purchase and decision he had a hand in making. The project also forces a student to think of ways an occupation would see Twitter as a benefit if it was around during that time. Otto Kuehn was a president so it is vital to tweet like a president or past president. It is a skillful tool to use in re-creating stories while learning an unlimited part of history.

On Edward Bean

 Samantha Lopez reports on her research about Edward Bean on her own blog.

Researching Sultana

Guest Post by Hayley Jasinksi

The primary source research for my character (Sultana) was particularly interesting. There were quite a few unique sources, such as the video of Sultana introducing one of her cubs for the first time. It was really neat to watch a video that a newsreel production company had filmed, produced, and released for public consumption; ideally, people would watch this newsreel before a movie in a theater. Unfortunately, there were a bit of information and sources missing that I would have liked to use in addition to what I had already found. Because Zero was born in the time before smartphones and even easily moveable cameras, there were not very many images of him specifically. There were plenty of depictions of Sultana’s cubs, but not very many of Zero himself. This was surprising to me because his birth was a momentous occasion in Milwaukee’s history and the zoological practice.

For my search, I mainly used our class bibliography to find primary sources; this document was created by a former student of the class and our TA. This document was rich with many sources for each of the characters in the reenactment, as well as a timeline and other supplemental information. This is how I found the video that I mentioned above. Additionally, I used some of our class readings as primary sources and had the help of several fabulous librarians and archivists who helped me on my quest for sources. As a class, we visited the American Geographical Society Library several times, and many of the polar bear materials inspired me to go deeper in my research quest. There are many mythical representations and drawings of polar bears that inform us in the current day about what people in the past thought of these creatures. This class is not my first experience looking for useful primary sources, so I had the advantage of knowing what to look for and how to look for it. However, this was my first time having to locate and use several primary sources for a project instead of one or two.

Building and Searching for Sources on Hagenbeck

Guest Post by Maddi Brenner

This semester I explored new avenues of research that focused on a single individual narrative, as well as utilizing direct and indirect content that examined how such a character contributed to these larger historical contexts. I also continued to develop and practice my writing skills that addressed a public audience and really spoke to the research I found. These experiences encouraged critical thinking, practice and creativity—all of which were so fun and exciting to work through!

Most of my primary source research surrounded my character, Carl Hagenbeck. Unfortunately, most of Hagenbeck’s resources are held in Germany (his home) and at his famous zoo: Tierpark Hagenbeck. Therefore, most of the material I gathered was through his memoir, which we have at UWM Libraries: Beasts and Men: Being Carl Hagenbeck’s Experiences for Half a Century among Wild Animals along with several digital photographs. I also utilized Nigel Rothfels’ Savages and Beasts: The Birth of the Modern Zoo as a helpful narrative that provided me with additional sources.

Since Hagenbeck is famous across the world, there continue to be many avenues that build a strong examination of his work and life. It was extremely rewarding to piece together these ideas and concepts, but also, work them into my own writing and story. It encouraged me to find gaps in the literature and prioritize material that may not be best understood or analyzed. My favorite part about the research was transcribing and relaying Hagenbeck’s history. As he remains a pioneer in zoo design, business and practices, he is also a controversial figure that exploited various peoples and cultures for the sake of economic gain. He symbolizes how we can understand the true narrative of past individuals that were inherently wrong and also extremely successful in shaping what we know today. It allows me to process connection and recognize how we build a new documentation and representation of these figures. As the saying goes, history tends to repeat itself. My hope is that writing to the truth of Hagenbeck’s life, good and bad, we can acknowledge all of what occurred and move forward efficiently.

References

Hagenbeck, Carl. Beasts and Men, Being Carl Hagenbeck's Experiences for Half a Century among Wild Animals. London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1912.

Rothfels, Nigel. Savages and Beasts: The Birth of the Modern Zoo. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002.

Researching a Teacher

Guest post by Olivia Cummings

For our Twitter reenactment I chose a fictional character. With a fictional character I had to figure out when this teacher would have started in Milwaukee and when she was going to bring her students to the zoo to make sure it matched up with the timeline. Even though my character was fictional, I still had to do some research to make her seem real. I found an elementary school that was functioning during the time of the reenactment and that was Longfellow Elementary. I also dove into the Google Doc that was created for us to use some primary sources and figured out when my character would be relevant to the zoo. A big part of my fictional character’s historical background was the controversy of field trips within schools during her time. A lot of people thought that if a teacher wanted to take her students somewhere for learning purposes, they should do it on the weekends to not disrupt their learning within the classroom. I had my character be controversial and do it during the school week because she thought that the weekend would cause fewer of her students to be there and they wouldn’t learn as much because to them they weren’t in school.

My Time in the Past

Guest Post by Nicholas Baumgart

For the final project I went into the archives to research Edward Bean. I went straight for the Milwaukee Zoological Society records. My goal was to find, obviously, information about Mr. Bean and the Society. More specifically, I was hoping the papers would give more information on Bean’s activities in the day-to-day operation of the zoo. I looked through the minutes of the Zoological Society’s near weekly meetings during his tenure. That search was not quite fruitless, but it did not provide personal information I could not find anything. The minutes, though, did show how the zoo was run and gave insight on how the zoo searched for animals and the role Bean played in that. Mr. Bean did not have much say, it seemed, on which animals were purchased, but he did provide many leads on where animals could be obtained. I enjoyed sifting through the pages in the archives, the delicate, yellowed pages in the near silence of the archives’ reading room. I enjoyed the time I spent in the archives, though, it always seemed intimidating reaching out and asking for help from the gatekeepers.

One very obvious item missing from the primary sources I looked through was interpretation. The minutes of the meetings were very concise and matter of fact. There were very few statements that delved into specifics of the committee’s actions. For example, when looking for an animal replacement, the only thing a speaker might say was “the llama was sick for a while and Bean knows someone nearby who is raising a healthy one.” There were no mentions of the value the animal brought to the zoo other than its financial value, no mention of how the keepers or the public felt of the animal.

Where I found the most success was the newspaper articles. The reporters provided interpretation and a more human touch to their stories. The articles, however, ignored the more matter of fact, dull, business proceedings of the zoo. Looking to the newspaper articles was not as fun as the archives because they were online, digital scans; there was just something cold about staring at the computer screen. I did, though, go through the microfilm collection in the UWM library. Microfilm is such a fun object to hold and flip through. This provided, for me, a clearer image for the first primary source project. One fun thing about reading the newspaper articles was reading the articles surrounding the relevant article. I found one macabre article reporting on a suicide in Madison, WI. A young man took his life because he believed that he could talk to people beyond the grave; his last words were something along the lines of “I’ll talk to you soon.”

In summary, the primary resources are fascinating, but they are not without a challenge. As a student learning where to look for the primary sources, my first go-to and main support of my arguments are secondary sources, sources that fill in gaps from minds that have done more learning and have had more experience. These exercises and this class have helped provide tools and practice with the tools for further research on different projects.

Otto Kuehn

Guest Post by James Trefry

My character for the Twitter re-enactment is Otto Kuehn, who was the first president of the Washington Park Zoological Society. His business connections in Europe were responsible for bringing Sultana to Milwaukee. He was also responsible for bringing Jacob the Hippo. Kuehn seems to have been a person who promoted the zoo to have animals not native to Milwaukee as he is a businessman who knew what consumers in this industry would like to see.

The handle I will be using is @OttoKuehn114.

News coverage

We are grateful to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel for publishing two news stories about our History 450 class.

Reporter Amy Schwabe wrote this long story in late November, providing an overview of the class as a whole. She featured our tabling at the Milwaukee Public Museum, with photographs from Mike Di Sisti. And then she covered the reenactment on December 2, highlighting some of the funniest and most poignant posts the students produced.

Daniel Hoan and Edward Bean

Sam Lopez scripted two characters during our live Twitter reenactment: Daniel Hoan and Edward Bean.

See her blog here for biographies of these two figures.