Now decried as racist, “human zoos” attracted millions to fairs and exhibitions in the 19th century.

They purported to show how other peoples lived in their “primitive” state, but they often revealed more about their white organizers.

In 1906, the Bronx Zoo exhibited a Congolese pygmy next to an orangutan, as an example of the “missing link.” The pygmy was finally removed after a public outcry. Clergyman James H. Gordon said, “Our race, we think, is depressed enough, without exhibiting one of us with the apes.”