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The era of anthropological exhibitions

1886-1914

In the last quarter of the 19th century, ‘human zoos’ are commonplace, featured in all expositions. Troupes and impresarios travel across Europe and the Atlantic. ‘Anthropological villages’ go from town to town and professional troupes emerge, offering a widening view of the diversity of the world.

The so-called ‘savage’ is everywhere, and the West constructs a stereotypical version of a world where ‘Aboriginals’, ‘Fuegians’, ‘Pygmies’, ‘Redskins’, and many others were presented as ‘inferior races’. Paris (1889), Chicago (1893), Lyon (1894), Geneva (1896), Brussels-Tervuren (1897), Berlin (1899), Osaka (1903), Saint-Louis (1904), Brussels (1910)… are notable for being immense ‘human zoos’ in the three decades before the First World War.

Édouard Manduau. La Civilisation au Congo. Kinshasa, DR Congo. 1884.
Oil on canvas. Coll. RMCA, HO.0.1.770; © RMCA Tervuren.

Souvenir de l’Exposition universelle d’Anvers. Types guerriers
de la Province équatoriale du Soudan. Belgium. 1894.
Postcard. © Groupe de recherche Achac/priv. coll.

Palais des colonies. Exposition universelle de Bruxelles-Tervuren. Belgium. 1897.
Postcard. © Groupe de recherche Achac/priv. coll.

Village sénégalais. Vue d’ensemble. Exposition universelle de Liège.
Belgium. 1905. Postcard. © Groupe de recherche Achac/priv. coll.

Exposition de Nancy. Village alsacien. Exposition de Nancy. Village alsacien.
France. 1909. Poster by C. Spindler. © Priv. coll.