What the ugly history of a 1906 Bronx Zoo exhibit tells us about ourselves today.
Pamela Newkirk
The Nation - June 1, 2015
At the dawn of the 20th century, a young 103-pound,
4-foot-11-inch tall African named Ota Benga was exhibited in the Bronx
Zoo monkey house. The year was 1906, eight years after the consolidation
of the five boroughs transformed New York into one of the world’s
largest cities, a dazzling hub of finance, publishing, culture, and
trade. The New York Zoological Gardens was one of the city’s crown
jewels, a sprawling neoclassical wonderland of lush forest, soaring
statuary. and gleaming white beaux arts–style pavilions. What became
known as the Bronx Zoo had been willed into being by the city’s social
elite, who positioned it as the world’s largest and most scientifically
advanced facility with an unrivaled array of exotic animals.
On September 8, the unveiling of its latest acquisition, the
so-called “pygmy” from the Congo, garnered sensational headlines.
“Bushman Shares a Cage with Bronx Park Apes,” screamed the New York Times
headline on the following day. According to the article: “The human
being happened to be a Bushman, one of a race that scientists do not
rate high in the human scale. But to the average non-scientific person
in the crowd of sightseers there was something about the display that
was unpleasant.”
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