Human zoo

Human zoos, also known as ethnological expositions, were 19th- and 20th-century public exhibitions of humans, usually in an erroneously labeled ‘primitive’ state. One-man human zoos also existed as early as the 17th century in Europe. The displays often emphasised the cultural differences between Europeans of Western civilization and non-European peoples.

About Human zoo in brief

Human zoos, also known as ethnological expositions, were 19th- and 20th-century public exhibitions of humans, usually in an erroneously labeled ‘primitive’ state. One-man human zoos also existed as early as the 17th century in Europe. The displays often emphasised the cultural differences between Europeans of Western civilization and non-European peoples. Some of them placed indigenous populations in a continuum somewhere between the great apes and Europeans. In the late 19th century, German ethnographic museums were an attempt at empirical study of human culture. They contained artifacts from cultures around the world organized by continent allowing visitors to see the similarities and differences between the groups and form their own ideas. These exhibits were lauded as educational to the general population by the scientific community of the time, because they were informative of the way that people lived across the world. Very quickly, the exhibits were used as a way to show that Europeans had evolved into a superior cosmopolitan life. Many of the people brought from their homelands to work in the exhibits had created families in Germany, and there were many children that had been born in Germany. After World War II, racism in Germany became more concealed or invisible, but it did not go away. Many people of foreign descent intended to leave after the war, but because of their German nationality, it was difficult for them to emigrate. Once they no longer worked in the zoos or for performance acts, these people were stuck living in Germany where they had no rights and were harshly discriminated against.

The Hitler Youth did not allow children of foreign parents to participate, and adults were rejected as German soldiers. Many ended up working in war industry factories or foreign laborer camps. In Mexico, not only consisted of a vast collection of animals, but also exhibited humans, such as dwarves, albinos and hunchbacks, for example. The idea of the human curiosity has a history at least as long as colonialism. The concept of parading peoples captured from conquered lands goes back to the Romans, Hagenbeck claimed to have the first shows displaying “cultures” from foreign lands. In 1876, Haganbeck had a group of 674 reindeer accompany a herd of 25 elephants, and by 1874 his acts included close to 67 men, women and children in his Ceylon show. The performances also expanded from showing everyday activities such as milking huts and building huts, to displaying some of the more extravagant parts of the cultures such as magicians, jugglers, devilglers and jugglers. The display was so successful that Carl was organizing his second show before the first one was over. Although the concept of human curiosity is not new, it has been around since the early 1800s. In the early 1900s, one of the earliest known zoos was the Moctezuma zoos in Mexico, that consisted of 6,000 animals, that of which the majority were humans.

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