Reading the Zoo Map: Cultural Heritage Insights from Popular Cartography

Abstract

Zoo maps have been common features of most zoos for many years, and yet they, like much cultural ephemera, have not been subject to focused academic research. Rooted in the concepts of critical and popular cartography, this paper presents an evaluation of selected zoo maps from the Philadelphia and Brookfield (Chicago) Zoos, dating from between 1886 and 1949. The maps are analysed as texts that reveal narratives about the place of zoos as socio‐cultural institutions, and the changing context of human–animal relations. We focus on the overall cartographic style shifts, and very specifically on the shifts in animal representation in the maps, across two distinct periods, namely scientific ‘plan maps’ and tourist‐oriented ‘cartoon maps’. We argue that historical zoo maps reveal much about past social norms and values concerned with zoos and the animals in them, and thus can tell us ‘stories’ that reveal the cultural heritage of zoos. They contribute to the overall impression that visitors develop of both zoos and of animals/nature more generally, and as such require further research and examination.

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