[music] I'm Alexander Heffner, your host on The Open Mind.

I'm delighted to welcome our guest today, author of the forthcoming book, The Human Zoo: The Stolen Lives Behind the Greatest Spectacles of the Gilded Age.

She is accomplished, an illuminating science writer and thinker, Shoshi Parks.

A pleasure to be with you today, Shoshi.

Hi, thank you so much for having me on.

Let me ask you to begin with, the origin of this book, was it an article, or an insight, or a dream?

Tell me how this came about in the first place.

Yeah.

I actually originally came across the idea or the historical fact, rather, back when I was in graduate school, for working on my PhD for anthropology.

It had really nothing to do with the work I was doing.

But I was so fascinated by this idea of human zoos, with which the field of anthropology was completely complicit in creating, that I couldn't let the idea go.

And, you know, 20 years later, I've finally written the book, not quite 20 years, 15 years later.

So, when you say human zoos for our educated Yeah.

viewers that, want to know if that is a play on words or if that is an accurate depiction of what we're talking about.

You do mean the exploitation of indigenous populations in, what were called zoos?

Yeah.

So the term human zoos, there's a little bit of debate around it today because it's, not exactly what you want, particularly descendants want to think of their ancestors having been in these human zoos.

It suggests they had no agency whatsoever.

But they were spectacles in which indigenous people were featured in what were called "living habitats."

So basically, you know, you go to the modern animal zoo today.

You see lions in their habitat that has, you know, the moat and the trees and you know, the boulders to climb on.

This concept actually came out of the human zoo, the original human zoo.

And the people who participated in them, were sometimes willing and, enjoyed the participation to some extent and returned year after year to participate in similar spectacles.

Others were coerced.

Or, literally captured, and placed in these types of, spectacles in Europe and the United States.

There are a few examples as well, of indigenous people being in actual human zoos, particularly Ota Benga, who's the most famous, unfortunate individual to have been in that situation, who was on display at the Bronx Zoo in 1906 for about three weeks in a primate enclosure.

There's so much I want to ask you because, -I mean, this is an endlessly -Yeah.

curious subject, with which I've only had familiarity through your writing, now.

First off, what was it about this idea that fascinated you?

Was it one thing in particular?

I think it's the whole mélange of what's going on here.

I mean, really, this is a distillation of colonialism.

It begins in the 1870s, during a period in which the Europe and the United States are, really beginning to scramble for various parts of, you know, "unknown" parts of the world, Africa, the South Pacific and so on.

And in doing so, as they begin to colonize these places, they're encountering individuals and communities that are unlike anything they've ever seen before.

So indigenous tribes, indigenous communities that, to them, from a European perspective, appear like savages.

The idea of these sort of savages becomes, something fascinating for the European and American public, who are hearing the dispatches from, you know, the news and from missionaries who are going out and working with, sort of colonial, imperial operations, about, you know, these quote unquote "cannibals" or, people who live in, societies that are run by women, for example, instead of men.

They're not patriarchal.

And it's almost as if they are.

It's almost as if we went to Mars and discovered, you know, an alien race.

And then it came back and, you know, told everybody in the US about it, they are just clamoring to see these people, for themselves.

So that then begets this, form of entertainment in which, usually pretty unscrupulous, entertainment managers will, hire or capture, groups of people from various places around the world and bring them to either Europe or the United States and put them on display in these living habitats for usually some, you know, several weeks or several months, often they're touring at first.

Later on, they tend to stay in one place for several months at a time.

Were the, let's call them either slaves or actors.

I guess it was both.

I don't think either is actually accurate.

-Oh, no?

Okay.

Correct me.

-No, I mean.

Although there were actually slaves, some enslaved people who were put on display, but, that is not the majority.

What I meant, Shoshi, is more, Yeah.

there were some were willing and some were unwilling.

-That's really what I meant.

-Correct.

Yeah.

That's right.

Yeah.

But I appreciate the correction in helping us understand this, were any of these people compensated?

I mean, that's where the idea came in of if you are the artistic representation yourself, your human body, were people paid like they were in the circus or no?

Not at first.

At first it was more of almost as if the entertainment folks were doing these people a favor by taking them to civilization.

But as the form of entertainment moves on, into the 1880s, and further into the early 20th century, they typically are paid some amount for their participation.

Although as science gets more involved with human zoos, there becomes some tension between whether or not the scientists, the anthropologists who have these people on display are actually, compromising the science by paying them.

So there's a lot of back and forth, but ultimately many of them do get paid something typically very little for their efforts.

This sounds like something eugenicists would be involved in, am I right?

Yes, this, very much so.

Although this is actually pre eugenics.

The largest human zoo ever to have occurred was in 1904 at the Saint Louis World's Fair.

-That's the same year -Wow.

that eugenicists, or sort of eugenics, began officially, you could say, in Britain.

So, human zoos actually precede eugenics.

But eugenics take a lot from the social Darwinism around which human zoos are built.

Fair to say, though, that race theory predated eugenics and the fiber of eugenics certainly was present in Americana and -Oh, yeah.

-society before.

Absolutely.

Right.

The corresponding era we think of the progressivism and the, reverse progressivism, regressiveism, of that era.

I mean, it was happening simultaneously.

Talk about the actual mechanics of what people would have seen at the World's Fair in Saint Louis relative to, the average human zoo.

Not that we can call anything average human zoo.

It's kind of an oxymoron.

But the human zoo, the prototypical one that you chronicle, the one the early 1900s in Saint Louis.

Mm-hmm.

Are the humans on display, are there the equivalent of, like, docents or museum staff who are sort of describing what, an onlooker is seeing or is the person being observed actually participating in that themselves at all?

-In explaining this is me, -Yeah.

this is what I'm doing and how I, you know.

Neither really.

In some cases, there were plaques that at least told you a little bit of information about who the tribe was.

But typically most of those, who were in these enclosures, in these living habitats, the majority didn't speak English.

And so there was a language barrier between them and the visitors, and there was rarely somebody there kind of acting as an intermediary and trying to interpret things.

The pictures are wild from this period.

You see, you know, a group of, a family, for example, sitting down to a meal and they're just surrounded by, you know, circles and circles of, you know, Victorian age people in their, you know, hats and their silk dresses.

It's just completely bizarre.

It's almost like they were watching a documentary or a movie.

So there's very little to tell them, actually, about, you know, what is going on.

In some or any instances they could see the observers, the spectators or are there situations where they couldn't see the people viewing them or they always could see who is watching them?

Yeah, they're always aware of those people watching them.

Often, especially early on.

People are so excited.

Europeans and Americans are so excited that they're literally, like, pushing through the doors of people's little huts that are created, you know, for them to be sleeping in after the zoo, you know, the hours are over for the day.

They're, you know, they're forcing their way in.

They're coming in through windows.

They're harassing people, you know, day in and day out.

They literally, you know, these individuals literally have no escape from the public eye.

And they were living in this space.

They weren't like on display.

And then going home to a hotel Never.

-or being boarded by some local, -There was no home.

It was their home.

Yeah.

But not in perpetuity.

I mean, this was not for like, the rest of their lives in any of these instances.

What was the shortest and longest period of such an exhibit, if we're going to call it sort of an exhibit?

Yeah, usually, it was at least a few weeks long.

But mostly.

Well, in the beginning it tends to be a couple of months and the group is touring different cities, often literally being put on display in zoos, in animal zoos.

But later on, as things kind of progress and these shows get bigger, they can be on site for, you know, 6 months, 8 months.

And those are especially, that's especially true with World's Fairs that lasts for, you know, about 6 to 8 months typically.

So I think what you're saying, in short, is that, as much as we may feel that we've demeaned our culture in the reality TV show Hmm.

state that we were in, literally, I mean, governed by the former star of The Apprentice and, Yeah.

two times over.

But like, this is not so much an anomaly.

I mean, in terms of the circus like atmosphere that you're alluding to.

Was there actually any, serious, bonafide science, that resulted from these zoos like, we know X, Y, and Z about human beings or psychology, because of these zoos?

Yeah, that's a good question.

Not for lack of trying.

But not really, no.

Were they real PhDs or were they charlatans?

Yeah.

No, almost from the very beginning of the human zoo, like, within the first couple of times it's shown to the public, it is presented to early anthropologists as a way for them to study communities that, are different from European descended communities.

So, you know, this is, remember, this is the late 19th century.

It's really hard for them to travel to Africa or to the South Pacific to do ethnographic research with a community.

So instead, the, you know, managers, the impresarios of these shows are saying, hey, we we're bringing them to you.

All you have to do is come down to the zoo and you can measure them, you can touch them, you can, ask them questions if we have an interpreter.

And so they do, and this becomes really the basis of the field of anthropology, the idea being that human cultures evolve from savagery into a stage called barbarism, barbarians.

And then eventually some of them, if they're sharp enough, might go on to civilization, which is, of course, the level that Europe has achieved and the United States.

And, you know, some of them may not some of them may degrade and go back the other way.

But the job of the anthropologist is to, in these early days is to determine, you know, what level of savage are these people, essentially.

So, the resulting analysis it did not involve really the scientific method per se.

It was more of a kind of, character assessment of, you know, how, like you said, how savage these people are.

But I think you're saying that there wasn't so much real science involved and the people who put on these, the MC's and the curators, they were not they were either not scholars by our standard today, or they just weren't academics at all.

They were more in it for the entertainment value?

Certainly the people who put on the shows, especially in the beginning were... And then they invited the academics to say, They invited the anthropologists in.

you may not be able to hop on a ship or later -a plane to do.

-Exactly.

-Okay.

So... -Yeah.

But let me just say, though, that there were attempts to be as scientific as possible when anthropologists were invited to get a look at people, you know, it was always in a private showing and they would bring a whole slew of different instruments with them in order to make teeny tiny minute measurements, that were the basis for defining race at the time.

It's a field called anthropometry, and it was part of anthropology, but it was also used in, some other biological fields at the time.

So there was a legitimate attempt to use science, objective science.

But the problem was it kept failing.

It kept coming up with results that weren't telling them anything.

And so eventually somebody caught on and was like, you know, this is not getting us anywhere.

Right.

And slowly, anthropology changed.

And objective science in the in 1900s or 19 teens, you know, some people might have, I said tongue-in-cheek, were they PhD's or charlatans.

-I mean, -Yeah.

a PhD today could be a charlatan, but the whole idea of being advanced in your scholarship in 1905 or 4 did not necessarily mean you were using the scientific method or the standard by which a scientist might operate today in terms of just, you know, statements that our forebears made about race and the relationship between race and intellect or one's skin color, -Yeah.

-and so there were some, insulting and kind of degenerative analyzes of our fellow human beings that govern that period.

-So it almost, -Yeah.

in some cases, it might not have mattered if you had the most advanced degree at all, if you were racist.

-That was -Right animating how you were viewing this whole endeavor.

-So let me ask you now, -That's right.

another technical question, were these indigenous people, and they were almost entirely indigenous people, right?

As the people on display?

Correct.

Yeah.

Were they ever interacting with animals, like non-human beings, non Homo sapiens, were they put in displays with other species?

That's an interesting question.

In some cases, we know, for example, that Ota Benga, who was put on display in a primate cage in the Bronx Zoo, was given an orangutan to hang out with.

And they were, you know, buddies.

There are photos of him, you know, with the orangutan in his arms.

And they, you know, that was probably his only friend, he felt like.

There are also instances of, like, a group coming across, so, for example, a group from Indonesia coming across with a few animals from their native region as well.

You know, birds and primates, that would be on display in the living habitat also.

But often they didn't survive the journeys.

Or, you know, they, it wasn't, they were not the primary thing that people came to see.

They were sort of in the background.

Got it.

Yeah, it's just interesting to imagine interfacing with nature and whether they were trying to again uphold any kind of, simulation of what it would be like in a particular, geography or constituency.

But it doesn't sound like they were so hell bent on recreating, the natural world in which, you know, that person would have lived, that indigenous person in South America, or Asia, or Africa.

It doesn't sound like, we were talking about a minute ago that they weren't really endeavoring to establish some integrity, whether it was the, you know, the natural world inhabiting, this exhibit, you know, that there wasn't that kind of process that went into saying, we want to simulate this as best we can.

Not necessarily so much with the natural world, but certainly with the cultural artifacts.

So every time a group would be brought into a human zoo, they would come with everything they needed to live their, you know, quote unquote, "traditional lives."

So they'd bring, their homes so they could be re-erected in the location.

They'd bring tools and cooking equipment.

Some would bring like, for example, the very first human zoo were featured, Sami people from Norway.

And, they brought with them a reindeer herd.

And people were very fascinated by their reindeer herd, but it wasn't so much that they were showing the natural environment.

It was showing the daily lives of these people.

So the, you know, visitors would watch them milk the reindeer, for example.

And that was supposed to be like a hit thing that people would come to see.

So this leaves me with, kind of evolution and then ultimately the stoppage of this type of activity.

So in American history, I cannot recall national legislation banning the practice of human zoos, but both legally and morally, at some point, this was considered probably on the borderline of objectionable or egregious.

Who is the first to call it out?

And then how, at least in in America, how did it become to be banned or frowned upon?

Yeah.

Well, it happened slowly.

The last human zoo to take place in the world, that we know of, was actually in the 1960s in Belgium.

So they continued for quite a while, but really, the heyday of the human zoo is with World War I, around 1917.

That is when, for a bunch of different reasons, it becomes more challenging to bring in individuals, communities from other places.

You know, there's a world war going on.

People in the US and Europe have less time for leisure.

Then there's also, this is the period at which movies have begun to come into favor.

So now there's an easier way to see, culturally interesting people by just going to a Nickelodeon or to a movie theater.

And then certainly anthropology itself also has already begun to significantly step away by that time.

It's really the Saint Louis World's Fair, the largest human zoo in history, which it's almost like an extinction burst.

It's so over the top, there's, like, 3000 indigenous individuals in the human zoos there.

And it is at that same event that Saint Louis World's Fair, that a man named Franz Boas, who is considered the father of modern American anthropology, sort of makes his first public claim that, social Darwinism, that basing anthropology, the idea of cultural comparison on race is a false avenue that we need to rethink what anthropology is.

And so over the next decade or so, up until about World War I, this is, you know, science begins to separate itself from the human zoo as well.

So there was not a clear demarcation.

No.

You said the 60s in Belgium.

I mean, I'm not surprised the 60s that people would Yeah.

undertake such an endeavor in the spirit of intoxication and everything else.

And, sort of a, Woodstock, a Woodstock, -Yeah, maybe.

-was the one in Belgium in the 60s, a kind of Woodstock like experience?

Is that or was it a... I don't know that I'd say that, but it was at a World's Fair, and that was still a period in which world fairs were really important spectacles, that, you know, lasted for months and that, you know, millions and millions of people would attend.

So it was, I don't know if I'd say a Woodstock kind of environment, but it definitely is celebratory type of environment, almost like a Disneyland kind of environment, in which, you know, different, people as well as, you know, different architectural styles and inventions and all this stuff are put on display.

And when was the last known human zoo in America, in the United States?

That's a good question.

I don't know exactly.

It was most likely in the 1930s.

They really, once anthropology kind of stepped out of it.

And then, after the World Wars, World War I, World War II, there really wasn't a taste for it anymore.

They couldn't make money off of it.

You know, entertainment impresarios couldn't really make money off of it.

People weren't, as eager to go to these types of spectacles.

And you see that today.

I mean, worlds fairs technically still exist, but they're nothing like the kind of, you know, insane spectacle that they were at the turn of the 20th century.

So that's why I don't know exactly when the last one in the US would have taken place.

But I do know that as these types of spectacles became less important, less, you know, essential to the American sort of culture that they, you know, declined.

And what did that tell you about, I think you're attributing the advancement of technology, or the lack of interest, in the continuation of the human zoo to the lack attributing that to at least partially, the advancement of technology, ability -to watch movies and engage in -Yeah.

the same kind of interactions that you would.

But, on some level, it seems like it wasn't a moral statement to stop doing, like it wasn't a question of this is morally wrong.

It just kind of faded out of, the interest and imagination of the American people and people generally.

Kind of, I find that surprising.

There were certainly people who spoke against these types of spectacles, but I'd say overall, yeah, it was just really that the culture moved on and there were.

And that's the part that I find surprising.

Not that people would not speak out against it.

Yeah, the culture moved on.

And I mean, to my mind, I'm thinking when you're saying, you know, the world's fair or something like a world's fair still happens, but it doesn't happen with the same fanfare Mm-hmm.

as FIFA World Cup or the Olympics.

Right.

Yes.

And I'm just.

I guess I'm asking you, after doing this exhaustive research, why do you think that is?

Because, it would seem to me to still be something that people got excited about, congregating around innovation and, in a centralized place.

And not just innovation, discovery, innovation.

Yeah.

Well, I think that's a big part of it is that by, you know, after the World War I and especially after World War II, these are no longer unknown elements the way they were 50 years before.

You know, everybody knows.

Well, most middle class, Americans and Europeans are aware that there are, you know, African tribes and that there are, people in the South Pacific who are different from themselves.

So it's the novelty has worn off.

But then, of course, because this is America, there's new novelties that take its place.

Yeah, of course.

And so, for example, documentaries of, you know, communities in Africa or in Asia, do begin to have a bit of a moment because now it's a way to still see these people, but in a novel way.

Right?

We can actually see them in situ.

We're out of time Shoshi, but I'm going to say that also the failure to have that interactivity, Mm-hmm.

you know, may be responsible for the decline too.

-Yeah.

-Please, go out and preorder Shoshi's terrific book, The Human Zoo.

Thank you for this, sharing your research about this endlessly interesting subject, really appreciate it.

Thank you.

Thanks so much.

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