Zoo History: A New Deal at the Zoo

The public health fears stirred up by the Coronavirus pandemic have been shadowed by considerable economic anxiety.  Unless you are Amazon, Ubereats, Purell, or Lysol, your business (or, in our cases, nonprofits) are probably bleeding money right now.  Job loss is shooting through the roof.  Plenty of comparisons have been made to one of the darkest of times in American economic history, the Great Depression.

Which is a little ironic, really.  The Great Depression actually lead to a pretty great time for zoos.

When Franklin Delano Roosevelt won the White House in 1932, he promised a "New Deal" for impoverish Americans.  A big part of that New Deal involved getting people back to work.  Since many of those who found themselves recently unemployed were manual laborers, a job type that was much more common back then then it is today, it made sense to harness their energies into a series of public building projects.  Collectively known as the Works Progress Administration, this massive government project sought to hire the unemployed - on the federal dime - and put them to work on projects that would be for the public good.

American zoos were among the greatest beneficiaries of FDR's vision.  Soon, virtually every major American zoo was the site of bustling construction projects.  In some cases, entirely new zoos were born out of the Depression, and others were completely redone.  The dilapidated menagerie in New York's Central Park was torn down and replaced with an entirely new zoo, one which lasted for another fifty years before it was again closed, renovated, and reopened in its current form.  Other zoo transformations were less dramatic, but still very impressive.  Many of the National Zoo's current exhibit buildings, including its Elephant House (still in use today) were built during this era, as were the Small Mammal House and Bird House.   The latter is currently shuttered for a massive renovation, but one which will still preserve its shell, built during the Depression.  Toledo, Pittsburgh, and Seattle were among the other zoos which saw massive new construction at this time.  Little Rock, Arkansas, basically got a brand new zoo out of the deal.

Nor was the work limited to zoos and aquariums.  Construction and improvement took place at many parks, museums, civic buildings, and universities.  It provided a chance for America to remake itself in a better image of itself.

Toledo Zoo's Aviary, built by the W.P.A. during the New Deal

It's worth remembering that, prior to the 1930's, most American zoos were little more than animal dumps.  With a few exceptions, such as Philadelphia Zoo and the Bronx Zoo, they were clapped-together collections of animals in ramshackle enclosures, kept in poor conditions.  The New Deal, in many ways, changed everything.  New, customized enclosures were built that provided stable, secure homes.  An increase in the number of new modern buildings allowed zoos to keep species that they had not been able to before; the Depression really was the birth of professional reptile keeping in most US zoos, as this is when the reptile houses were built.  Some zoos, such as Denver, even began to experiment with natural exhibits for the first time.

Most zoos were public, municipally-run attractions at this time, and many were still free of charge to enter.  Those that did charge admission were relatively cheap.  They provided a welcome sanctuary from the struggles and misery of the Depression and gave people a chance to escape from their worries for a little while.

There are parallels between the Depression and now... but not really very many.  Unlike the Depression, no one can visit their zoos or aquariums right now due to health concerns rather than economic ones.  There also isn't likely to be a surge of new construction that we're going to see after this.  During the 2009 financial crisis, the resulting stimulus package specifically mentioned zoos (alongside golf courses and casinos) as not being eligible for stimulus funds, which was a short-sighted decision in my opinion.  Zoos and aquariums have been active at soliciting funds to help hold them over until this ends, but there has been a lot of belt tightening, and while I am sure that animal care standards will be maintained, this is probably going to put a dent in exhibit construction and expansion for many facilities.

There are a lot of tragedies associated with the current situation, the greatest of which obviously being the loss of lives.  Still, if there's one thing I've seen, it's been the power of zoos and aquariums to share their animals with people in a way that comforts the upset and cheers the discouraged.

Hopefully this current scare will be over before too much longer, and we can welcome visitors back soon.  When you do take your next visit, keep an eye out for any particularly old buildings, which may or may not have some carvings on them.  You might just see the initials "W.P.A."