U.S. History 2015-2016: Developement of Zoos

For our second quarter final project, we got to pick an area of impact on urban life from around 1880-1920. I picked the development of zoos. According to National Geographic, "a zoo is a place where animals live in captivity and are put on display for people to view. The word “zoo” is short for “zoological park.” Zoos contain wide varieties of animals that are native to all parts of the Earth."

Throughout the past few weeks we have been studying migration and the affects it had and is having on the United States. If it wasn't for immigration, zoos might not have become as popular as they are or might not have opened in the U.S. at all. The first ever zoo was opened in Austria in 1752. It is still open today and was opened a little over 100 years before the first one in the U.S. Some of the largest groups of immigrants were from Austria and known as Austrian-Americans. It is thought that this is one of the reasons for the development of zoos, especially because of when they opened. Keeping this in mind, it doesn't come as a shock to see that the largest groups of these people could be found in New York, Pennsylvania, California, Florida, New Jersey, and Ohio considering a majority of the first zoos opened in these areas.

The first zoo to open in the United States was the Philadelphia Zoo. The zoo was originally planning to open on March 21, 1859 but the outbreak of the Civil War put a pause to this idea. As a result, the gates did not officially open to the public until July 1, 1874. Under the care of Dr. William Camac, a founding father of the zoo and a local physician at the zoo, 813 animals came to call the Philadelphia Zoo home. Within the first year of opening, the zoo had around 228,000 visitors.

So, you are probably asking yourself, why did it take a hundred years to build a zoo? The answer, it didn't. Before the 1850's people had very little leisure time. Most people spent from sun up to sun down working and if they weren't working, they were sleeping. With the technological advances made in the early nineteenth century, the amount of physical bodies needed in a workspace was greatly reduced and thus, people had time to actually fill.

After the first zoos were so successful, people began to see the importance behind them. They provided a fun activity to do during free-time and time to spend with their families but it actually went farther than that. The zoos provided another source of education to the public, helped to promote and encourage advances in the scientific field, and helped increase the awareness and protection of the animals and their habitats.

In 1924, the United States formed the AZA. AZA is an organization known as American Association of Zoological Parks and Aquariums. AZA is just the shorthand way of saying American Zoos and Aquariums. The mission of AZA was to advance the conservation of these animals and their natural habitats, provide a new form of and advance education, advance the sciences, and increase the amount of recreation at zoos.

The development of zoos also helped out the cities surrounding them. Most zoos were extensions of existing cities or suburban parks but there were also some that were built from scratch. Because of the location of most of the zoos, the cities were "put on the map" or, if they're name was already fairly popular, the city became the talk of the time. This also means that local businesses also became places that tourists attended, such as restaurants, and helped to keep the city thriving. A few other zoos that opened around the time of the Philadelphia Zoo are the Lincoln Park Zoological Gardens that opened in Chicago, IL in 1868 and Rodger Williams Park Zoo that opened in Providence, RI in 1872.

Each of the animals was obtained in its own unique way. Once the zoos became extremely popular to the people, the public began to donate some of them. This was done either by donations of money, donation of the animal itself, or just the money that the people paid to get into the zoo. Some animals also came from commercial animal trades or zoo-sponsored collecting expeditions. This not only changed what types of animals could see at the different zoos but it also shaped the way the animals were seen through the eyes of the pubic.