Animal Activism and the Zoo-Networked Nation

Author(s)

  • Daniel Vandersommers Author

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.52537/humanimalia.9914

Abstract

The first American zoos commanded the attention of early animal activists around the turn of the twentieth century. This essay argues that all zoogoers in the first zoos took part in popularizing a discourse about both animal welfare and “animal rights.” This essay also posits that as zoos were networked together, so were their accompanying “activists.” As zoos became a centerpiece of the American city, they simultaneously established public forums for the rethinking of animals.

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Author Biography

  • Daniel Vandersommers

    Daniel Vandersommers is a Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of History at Kenyon College.  He is working on a book manuscript entitled Laboratories, Lyceums, Lords: The National Zoological Park and the Transformation of Humanism in Nineteenth-Century America. This project, by closely examining the first decades of the National Zoo, links intellectual and cultural history with environmental history and the history of science, arguing that the public zoo movement and the rise of popular zoology significantly challenged common notions about animals and their place in the world.

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Published

2015-03-06

How to Cite

“Animal Activism and the Zoo-Networked Nation”. 2015. Humanimalia 6 (2): 111-65. https://doi.org/10.52537/humanimalia.9914.