Day 23: Cincinnati Zoo (1928) - Tiger and Asian Elephant
Page count: 144
Photographs: c.94 black-and-white photographs
Illustrations/diagrams: N/A
Layout: Comprehensive walkthrough account of collection, followed by discussion of the history of the zoo
Map: Located within introductory text of guidebook
The first North American guidebook of the thread this time, and moreover an item from a zoological collection which a reasonably-large number of Zoochatters have visited at one point or another; as such I have hope that this post will prove to be a fruitful one in terms of the overall level of feedback, questions and remarks it will produce. It is worth digressing for a moment to note that this guidebook fell into my possession fairly recently, as a result of a zoo enthusiast based in Scotland - who had spent many years in the USA, and therefore had accumulated many North American items seldom seen on this side of the Atlantic - deciding to sell their collection of guidebooks on eBay over the course of last year. I suspect many British and European zoo enthusiasts increased their own collections substantially as a result.
The first thing apparent on handling this item is how well-produced it is; the interior paper quality is extremely fine and pleasant to the touch, the cover is printed on glossy, faux-level paper, and overall it has held together very well for an item which is approaching a century old - certainly it is in much better condition than those guides of equal age I own from various European and Australian collections!
Given the fact that I suspect that the contents of this guidebook might be of particular interest, but for obvious reasons only have a certain amount of scope to reproduce images from the guidebook within this post, I have included the below scans of the detailed contents page to give those reading this thread a clear idea of precisely what can be found within - this will hopefully give people a starting point from which to make requests for further information and any additional scans which would aid discussion.
Beyond the contents page, a series of small segments covering a range of disparate points follows; firstly, a page explaining the basic taxonomic and zoological terms used within the body of the guidebook, such as the five basic groupings within the vertebrates; secondly, a relatively detailed biography of Sol A Stephan, the general manager of the zoo; thirdly, a section providing a variety of key information about the collection (public transport links, admission rates, details regarding provision of wheelchairs, umbrellas and other such items, and so forth); and finally, a small map of the collection as a whole - an image of which is visible below.
After this point, as can be seen in the above image, an exhibit-by-exhibit and species-by-species walkthrough account of the zoo as a whole follows, comprising much of the main body of the guidebook. These are presented in an order matching the general route which was suggested to the visitor to the collection at the time of publication, often include comprehensive species lists, and are largely accompanied by high-quality photographs either depicting some of the species under discussion, or the houses and exhibits within which they were held. The text throughout this segment of the guidebook strikes me as particularly informative, interesting and reaching a pretty high standard of quality -
especially where the descriptions of building design and construction are concerned, reaching levels of detail which I have seldom seen in other zoo guidebooks. For instance, the following is the description provided for the Monkey House:
This is a large, round building, which is built of stone, iron and glass. It is sixty feet in diameter, and the distance from the floor to the large glass dome in the center of the roof is forty feet. This building was completely remodeled in 1922. The sixteen cages are each provided with a large skylight to assure an abundance of sunlight, which is necessary for the health of the animals. The interior walls are of reinforced concrete. The most modern types of ventilation and heating systems have been installed. The heating system will maintain an even temperature of seventy degrees. The floors of the cages are paved with a special brick composed partly of cork and asphalt. The cork insures the proper degree of warmth required for the monkeys, The floors at the same time can be kept clean and sanitary at all times.
If modern-day zoo guidebooks provided this level of detail about the design and construction of animal houses and exhibits, with a resulting increase in the primary resources available to those interested in participating in the sub-forum in question, we would probably have a better standard of posts over in SpecZoo!
Unsurprisingly enough, given the significance of the species and its extinction at Cincinnati a mere 14 years prior to the publication of this guidebook, the lengthy segment discussing the Aviary Block digresses from the walkthrough account of species held within to briefly discuss the Passenger Pigeon once held within this area of the zoo, as seen above. This represents one of several points in the walkthrough account of species and exhibits where attention is paid to the heritage of the zoo and the way in which it had developed over the half-century or so since it had first opened in 1875; as will be discussed anon, this guidebook *does* also contain a segment devoted to the history of the zoo - something which, as my posts in this thread have already indicated, is somewhat more commonplace - but the inclusion of notes on the development and history of a zoological collection within species/exhibit accounts is vanishingly-rare these days.
One of the other notable examples of this trend comes somewhat later in the walkthrough account, where specific note is made of a particular free-standing cage which was the first at the zoo, and which at the time of publication was kept well-maintained as a point of historical importance; I rather suspect that nearly a century later, it will have long-since been removed.... but I would love to be proven incorrect on this point!
At the end of the exhibit-by-exhibit walkthrough account of the zoo, a short section follows on the various features provided at the collection beyond the zoological attractions; the claim is made that "
Cincinnati Zoo is the only Zoological Garden in the United States combining high-class entertainment features with its zoological collection", something which I find somewhat difficult to believe.... perhaps the key is the use of the term "high-class", and this is a not-so-veiled dig at the attractions found at other zoological collections? Within this section, mention is made of the events held at the Zoo Pavilion, Restaurant and Opera House, open-air dancing venues, ice skating rinks, theatres, baseball fields, and a variety of other such attractions. Again, not knowing as much about Cincinnati Zoo as I perhaps should, I find myself wondering how many of these have survived to living memory, let alone the present day.
The final major segment of the guidebook comprises a fairly-substantial account of the history of Cincinnati Zoo from 1875-1928, going into rather a lot of detail about the circumstances which led to the establishment of the collection, early trials and tribulations experienced as the zoo started to grow and expand, and details of the financial and political manoeuvring which would ultimately result in the formation of the Cincinnati Zoological Park Association and the purchase of the zoo from the previous owners; as such this guidebook contains much information which may well be unknown to the casual zoo enthusiast, certainly one such as myself who has never visited the collection and "knows" it only through those aspects most-often discussed in the present day. As I have noted on multiple occasions in this thread and elsewhere on the forum, my interest in zoo guidebooks as historical documents is of equal import to my interest in the zoological collections themselves, and as such, historical reviews and accounts such as this are always a massive bonus when weighing up the relative merits of a guidebook.
Beyond here, the final dozen or so pages before the (extensive and methodically-referenced) index to the guidebook comprise a series of photographs taken throughout the collection over the years, covering a fairly wide and random selection of subjects, interspersed with around sixteen advertisements for various businesses operating in the Cincinatti area and Ohio as a whole; unlike some of the other guidebooks we have covered so far, which contain advertisements heavily aimed towards families and children, these are very much more akin to the advertisement material found within the 1877 London Zoo guidebook covered some weeks ago - something that I suspect can be attributed in large part to these guidebooks being published at a time when zoological collections were viewed with a much more sombre and serious outlook. Certainly one cannot imagine a zoo guidebook published in more recent years containing adverts promoting asbestos roofing, multiple rival plumbing companies and automobile interior upholsterers, to name but a few! However, one particular advert found within this section strikes me as particularly worthy of mention - promotion of the animal import business which was still actively maintained and managed by the Hagenbeck family at the time of publication, and which had offices in New Jersey alongside their offices in Germany:
Another of the advertisements on this particular double-page spread - and the other reason I chose to scan these particular pages in - promotes the services of the printing house which was responsible for the publication of this guidebook, something that I thought worth highlighting given the discussion on this general subject which took place some weeks ago between myself,
@MRJ and
@Coelacanth18 . On a related point, it should be noted that this guidebook is specifically cited as having been written by Sol A Stephan, the aforementioned general director of the zoo at the time of publication!
Overall, I feel like this guidebook is probably one of the best possible options which could have been randomly selected, as far as a first look at an item from North America is concerned; I suspect I have made it fairly obvious how much I like this guidebook, and the degree to which I feel it provides an excellent and in-depth look at the collection to which it pertains. Now, I open the floor to anyone and everyone who feels they have something to contribute, or who would like to request further information on any aspect of this guidebook.
