Human Zoo "ethnological expositions" Jardin Zoo, Paris France 1877

Exhibitions of exotic populations became popular in various countries in the 1870s. Human zoos could be found in Hamburg, Antwerp, Barcelona, London, Milan, New York, and Warsaw with 200,000 to 300,000 visitors attending each exhibition. In Germany, Carl Hagenbeck, a merchant in wild animals and future entrepreneur of many European zoos, decided in 1874 to exhibit Samoan and Sami people as "purely natural" populations. In 1876, he sent a collaborator to the Egyptian Sudan to bring back some wild beasts and Nubians. The Nubian exhibit was very successful in Europe and toured Paris, London, and Berlin. He also dispatched an agent to Labrador to secure a number of "Esquimaux" (Inuit) from the settlement of Hopedale; these Inuit were exhibited in his Hamburg Tierpark.

Geoffroy de Saint-Hilaire, director of the Jardin d'acclimatation, decided in 1877 to organize two ethnological spectacles that presented Nubians and Inuit. That year, the audience of the Jardin d'acclimatation doubled to one million. Between 1877 and 1912, approximately thirty ethnological exhibitions were presented at the Jardin zoologique d'acclimatation.

Human zoo - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

White on Black: Images of Africa and Blacks in Western Popular Culture - Google Books Result

For more than half a century - from the beginning of the 1870s to the end of the 1930s - the exposition of so-called exotic peoples in zoological gardens** and international expositions attracted a huge public eager to be fascinated by the unfamiliar and the unknown. Throughout Western Europe travelling exhibits of non-European natives were recurring features of zoological gardens where they eclipsed the drawing power of the more usual animal exhibits. Both exhibits were isolated by fences that variously protected sometimes the animals and more often the public; but in the cases of the human exhibits the main purpose of the fences seems to have been to stress the distinction between them and us.

MIGS: Occasional Paper Series: On A Neglected Aspect Of Western Racism

Click on any of the above links there is a lot of history to the practice
I have received a pot load of anonymous posts the last couple of day, the majority of them from Belgium, Germany, France, with a couple from Spain and one from the United States. Apparently they have misunderstood my remarks about the keeping of humans as exhibits as was mentioned they did at the Hagenbeck Tierpark, and my disdain for the Gay Circus. LET ME MAKE THIS CLEAR. It is about stereotyping a race, a people, a culture, or a profession or a terrible illness. My statement said Nazi Germany, not the German Nation. A group of people with a bad idea doesn't include all the people of that Nationality, which is my point about stereotyping and why the "ethnological expositions" were wrong and may have lead to some of those actions of the Natzi party. My grandfather was German, and he wasn't responsible. I am of German decent and I also am not responsible. Only the Nazi's and the Nazi sympathizers were responsible, as were the folks who turned a blind eye as well as the folks who propagate stereotype's. Exhibiting people as well as animals in the old day's, encouraged terrible stereotype's to both people and animals. I feel the same about "Gay Circus's". There is nothing funny about AID's and to do benefits for them using a sexual sadomasochistic theme is a terrible stereotype to propagate. Every one in the circus has heard the old stories about snatching women, and girls running away with the circus or carnival. "Lock your wives and daughter's up the circus is coming to town, etc. etc. Don't lie, you all have. That's just one of many stereotypes, true or false which is not done any good by doing a performance , costumed as the Gay Circus is. A world wide campaign to "clean up the image", be thought of as art and culture, and you come up with this type of public spectacle???? Again, a regular performance with a portion of the proceeds donated, very noble. Or an extra show with all the proceeds donated. Nobler yet. Only act with dignity, grace and professionalism. Wear standard costumes. Don't make it sexual with an homosexual atmosphere. I trust if you did one running around dressed like dirty syringes or IV bags, it may not seem so funny, and "artistic". That's stereotyping a people, a life style, my profession and the profession of my family, and a terrible illness caused by a great number of things. Not just the one you seem to think is worthy of jokes.
Again I would like to encourage everybody's responses to the posts. But neither I or members/readers of this blog will be attacked by timid anonymous folks. I will have the right to address those attackers. There is another blog up the street, that will accept your anonymous application, take it there, it is not welcome in this house.