Introduction: Science in public, “human zoos” and in scientific Museums

In the late-nineteenth-century Europe, the popularity of a specific kind of ephemeral exhibition, the so-called “human zoos” reached its zenith. In these shows, indigenous people were displayed in their costumes, re-enacting their customs alongside animals from their home countries. Like museums, they presented “foreign” artifacts and “cultural aliens,” albeit in a live theatrical context. As such, these shows filled a gap that museums were unable to: they presented the “other” in the flesh.

The phenomenon of “human zoos” was extremely successful and spread rapidly across Europe, especially after Carl Hagenbeck (1844–1913) developed it into a thriving business model in his Thierpark (“zoo”), which opened in 1866. Ethnographic shows, Hagenbeck called them Völkerschauen (“peoples’ exhibitions”), like these became an integral part of world fairs, colonial exhibitions, and other ephemeral exhibitions. Over time, the character of these shows negatively transformed: they changed from presentations with a serious claim of authenticity, to attention-seeking circus spectacles. By demonstrating a seemingly natural polarity between European civilizations, with technological advancement and modernity on the one hand and primitivism on the other, they reinforced a sentiment of European superiority. Simultaneously, a wave of romanticization set in, in which indigenous people were perceived as being “purer” and uncorrupted by civilization and industrial culture. In his book, Carl Hagenbeck emphasized the innocence and authenticity of the people he hired and called them “natural men.”