| Animal Attractions: Nature on Display in American Zoos On a rainy day in May 1988, a lowland gorilla named Willie B. stepped outdoors for the first time in twenty-seven years, into a new landscape immersion exhibit. Born in Africa, Willie B. had been captured by an animal collector and sold to a zoo. During the decades he spent in a cage, zoos stopped collecting animals from the wild and Americans changed the ways they wished to view animals in the zoo. Zoos developed new displays to simulate landscapes like the Amazon River basin and African forests. Exhibits similar to animals' natural habitats began to replace old-fashioned animal houses. Elizabeth Hanson is a historian of science and Director of Special Projects at The Rockefeller University. She is the author of Achievements: A Century of Science for the Benefit of Humankind, 1901-2001 . |