Carl Hagenbeck
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Carl Hagenbeck (1844-1913) was a merchant in wild animals and future entrepreneur of many European zoos. He is often considered as the father of the modern zoo. However, his pioneer role in displaying human beings aside animals, in what has been called "human zoos," is less well known.
When Carl was 14, his father, an amateur animal trainer, gave him some seals and a polar bear. Carl's collection of animals grew until he needed large buildings to keep them in. Hagenbeck left his home in Hamburg, Germany, to go with hunters and explorers to jungles and snow-clad mountains. He captured animals in nearly every land in the world. In 1874, he decided to exhibit Samoan and Sami people (Laplanders) as "purely natural" populations, with their tents, weapons, sleds, aside a group of reindeers [1][2]
In 1875, Hagenbeck began to exhibit his animals in all the large cities of Europe as well as in the United States.
In 1876, he sent a collaborator to the Egyptian Sudan to bring back some wild beasts and Nubians. The Nubian exhibit was very successful in Europe and toured Paris, London, and Berlin. He also dispatched an agent to Labrador to secure a number of "Esquimaux" (Inuit) from the settlement of Hopedale; these Inuit were exhibited in his Hamburg Tierpark [1]. Hagenbeck's exhibit of human beings, considered as "savages", in a "natural state," was the probable source of inspiration for Geoffroy de Saint-Hilaire's similar "human zoo" exhibition in the Jardin d'acclimatation in Paris. Saint-Hilaire organized in 1877 two "ethnological exhibitions," presenting Nubians and Inuits to the public, thus succeeding to double the entrees of the zoo [1].
Carl Hagenbeck also trained animals to sell to circuses at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, Illinois, in 1893. Hagenbeck's circus was one of the most popular attractions. His collection included large animals and reptiles. Many of of the animals were trained to do tricks. He crossbred in 1900 a female lion with a Bengal tiger, and sold the hybrid $2 millions to the Portuguese zoologist Bisiano Mazinho.
However, Hagenbeck dreamed of a permanent exhibit where animals could live in surroundings much like their natural homes. This dream came true in 1907 when he opened his great zoo at Stellingen, near Hamburg, Germany. Today his ideas are followed by most large zoos. He founded the Tierpark Hagenbeck in 1907, which still exists.
In 1905, Hagenbeck used his outstanding skills as an animal collector to capture a thousand camels for the German Empire to use in Africa. He described his adventures and his methods of capturing and training animals in a book, Beasts and Men, published in 1908.
[edit] References
- ^ a b c Human Zoos, by Nicolas Bancel, Pascal Blanchard and Sandrine Lemaire, in Le Monde diplomatique, August 2000 (English) French - free
- ^ Savages and Beasts - The Birth of the Modern Zoo, Nigel Rothfels, Johns Hopkins University Press (English)
[edit] Bibliography
- Eric T. Jennings, Visions and Representations of French Empire, The Journal of Modern History, volume 77 (2005), pages 701–721 DOI: 10.1086/497721
- Ilinca Iurascu, "Seeing Race in Time: The Berlin Arcades and the Age of Accelerated", University of Pennsylvania
