Human Zoo
Human zoos (also called ethnological expositions or Negro Villages) were 19th- and 20th-century public exhibits of humans, usually in a so-called natural or primitive state. The displays often emphasized the cultural differences between Europeans of Western civilisation and non-European peoples. Ethnographic zoos were often predicated on unilinealism, scientific racism and social Darwinism. A number of them placed indigenous people (particularly Africans) in a continuum somewhere between the great apes and humans of European descent. Ethnographic zoos have since been criticized as highly degrading and racist.
Read more about Human Zoo: First Human Zoos, 1870s To World War II, Legacy of Human Zoos
Famous quotes containing the words human and/or zoo:
“There’s not one part of his physical being that’s like that of human beings. From his warped brain down to the tiniest argumentative cell of his huge carcass, he’s unearthly.”
—Willis Cooper. Rowland V. Lee. Wolf von Frankenstein (Basil Rathbone)
“...there was the annual Fourth of July picketing at Independence Hall in Philadelphia. ...I thought it was ridiculous to have to go there in a skirt. But I did it anyway because it was something that might possibly have an effect. I remember walking around in my little white blouse and skirt and tourists standing there eating their ice cream cones and watching us like the zoo had opened.”
—Martha Shelley, U.S. author and social activist. As quoted in Making History, part 3, by Eric Marcus (1992)