The Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) Library and Archives is excited to publicly unveil its Department of Tropical Research Film Collection.  Through a program made possible by funding from the Mellon Foundation, WCS was awarded a Recordings at Risk grant from the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) to digitize and make publicly available these films, created between the 1920s and 1960s.  

The films in this collection are rare examples of the early integration between motion pictures and scientific practices. What makes the films of the Department of Tropical Research (DTR) particularly special is rather than just using film as a tool for scientific research or documentation, they started using the medium to generate public interest in their work by a mass audience.  

Led by the naturalist William Beebe, the DTR conducted over four dozen expeditions across tropical terrestrial and marine locales. The staff of the DTR were among the first Western scientists to study the interconnectedness of tropical wildlife and their habitats through close, first-hand observations. In addition to field scientists, the staff of the DTR included writers, artists, and filmmakers who in addition to conducting scientific research were responsible for communicating the details of their fieldwork to a mass audience.  This form of communication was likely also essential to the DTR in raising funds to cover the high costs of their research. 

The film below is among the oldest DTR films we have in the WCS Archives. Created in 1923 and 1925, it contains clips from their two expeditions to the Galápagos Islands.  

Shot by John Tee-Van and Ernest Schoedsack (the future co-director of King Kong [1933]) the material in the above reel was part of the stream of newsreels, books, and articles that the DTR released in both popular magazines and scientific journals. Less than a year after his first expedition to the Galápagos Islands, Beebe published the book Galapagos: World’s End (1924). The book spent a year on the bestsellers list, with its vivid color illustrations and black-and-white photographs of rare wildlife. It was an accessible account of the islands that reactivated interest in this area as the site that inspired Darwin’s natural history studies. Some of the DTR’s accompanying films of flightless cormorants, tortoises, iguanas and albatrosses were released as newsreels and introduced the Galápagos Islands to new audiences across the world.  

In 1925 Beebe harnessed the public’s interest in his work and funded a six-month return expedition to the Galápagos Islands aboard the steam yacht Arcturus. 

Above are two films shot by Ernest Schoedsack from the Arcturus expedition. The first film is an example of a newsreel exhibited alongside silent feature films, and the second film was shown to audiences attending William Beebe’s in-person lectures. In 1926, less than a year after returning from his second expedition to the Galápagos Islands, Beebe published another best-selling account of his oceanographic expedition, The Arcturus Adventure. The combination of Beebe’s books and films, according to Galápagos Conservation Trust Ambassador Henry Nicholls, reactivated public interest and led to a rapid increase in tourism to the Galápagos Islands.  

Read more about the project on the WCS Newsroom.

This post was written by Leopold Krist, Project Archivist for the WCS Archives project Preserving Conservation Science and History: Digitizing the Department of Tropical Research Films.  This project was supported by a Recordings at Risk grant from the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR). The grant program is made possible by funding from the Mellon Foundation. 

This post was written by Helen Vivas, who was the WCS Library and Archives’ Photo Collection Management Intern for Fall 2023. Helen is completing her Bachelor’s of Arts, in history and film studies, from CUNY Queens College.

When the Children’s Zoo opened to the public in 1941, the War in Europe was already disrupting people’s lives in the U.S. As the country entered World War II at year’s end everyone had to make sacrifices, including education and recreation outside of schools. An area at the Bronx Zoo specifically for children created a friendly and welcoming environment during a time when many aspects in the lives of kids were changing. For a time, fuel rationing limited school trips. But according to the Annual Report of 1941: “wartime restrictions on classes visiting the Zoo were removed early in the season and classes began to come in considerable numbers — we undertook to give free guided tours to classes from New York City schools. In all, 113 school tours were scheduled — far more than we could take care of.” (29) Children needed public spaces for social and educational activity, a parallel seen during the Bronx Zoo’s 2020 reopening amid the coronavirus pandemic. The environment of the Bronx Zoo has always catered to curious onlookers learning from animal exhibits. These historic moments saw the zoo leaning into its role as a child-friendly educational resource.

Through my work as the intern at the WCS Library and Archives, I have come to understand how the Bronx Zoo recognizes public need and interest over much of the past 125 years. Although children today have information and technology at their fingertips, they still have a strong need for experiences in the real world. In a place like New York City where concrete and skyscrapers overtake our environment, for some the Bronx Zoo is the only place to interact with wildlife and different environments. A zoo is more than a place where animals live, it teaches empathy and appreciation for a world beyond our own. Those attributes can be especially helpful during confusing times.

This post was written by Tayla Evans, who was the WCS Library and Archives’ Photo Collection Management Intern for Summer 2023. Tayla is currently working on her Bachelor’s of Fine Arts, with a specialization in Illustration, from Pratt University.

During the early 20^th century, vanguards of the era were inciting technological revolutions, confronting flu epidemics, and lounging by the Bronx Zoo’s Sea Lion Pool – just like we would today.

One thing I’ve noticed is that when recalling people from previous times, we often skew our perception of them by imagining them as being an entirely different demeanor from us. You might imagine women in the early 1900s leading their bustles across the street as suited businessmen hold austere conversation. People who had lived so long ago that their entire bearing might seem alien to our modern manners. But time doesn’t change the fact that people have always been people. My experience as a Photo Management Intern at the WCS Library and Archives has illuminated me to this phenomenon more than ever. 

My involvement with the Archives granted me the opportunity to digitize photo negatives that offer a history of the Bronx Zoo since its conception, allowing me to witness the visual development of the zoo as it cemented itself as both a cultural institution and a landmark in conservation – and an essential part of the community. As I examined negatives leading up from the early to late 1900s, I think of the events that were happening in the periphery of these snapshots of life – some of which are mirrored in our time, like the Influenza Epidemic of 1918. Furthermore, despite similarly tragic events such as the World Wars, there lies an apparent care and joy that visitors found within the zoo and its non-human inhabitants.

I’ve realized, as I went through the Archives, that photographs offer a breadth of life – an exhibit of how the different experiences of humankind can be united by a shared familiarity with the Bronx Zoo throughout time. Photos are a way of injecting life and humanity into a past we see as wholly distant from ourselves; that’s why photos are so important – we garner what we know from what has been left behind because people cared to preserve them.

Getting the opportunity to view the historical photo negatives in the archives has given me a new lens in viewing a history of the Bronx community that isn’t as well known. As the WCS Archives continue to grow and expand in diversity and voices, I urge everyone to empower themselves through the unknown and eccentric history that exists in their local institutions; they might seem more familiar than you expect!

This post was written by Shelda Zajmi. A Master of Information candidate at Rutgers University, Shelda worked during Fall 2021-Spring 2022 on the WCS Archives’ Photo Preservation Project funded by a New York State Library Conservation/Preservation of Library Materials Grant.

The Bronx Zoo was founded by the New York Zoological Society with the purpose of serving the public while promoting education and conservation. As laid out in the Society’s founding charter, the City of New York supported this endeavor by providing 250 acres of city park lands as well as annual funds for the Zoological Park’s maintenance, including upkeep of buildings and care for animals. The New York Zoological Society paid for animals, research, exploration, and conservation.

The choice to locate the Bronx Zoo in South Bronx Park was purposeful, and in the Society’s first Annual Report, one reason listed was its proximity to the New York Botanical Garden, which would be beneficial to both institutions. Another reason was the richness of the existing landscape. The southern portion of Bronx Park was described by the Bronx Zoo’s first director William Hornaday as having a “wonderful combination of hill and hollow, with high ridge and deep valley, of stream and pond, rolling meadow, rocky ledge and virgin forest of the finest description, all of which, by a happy combination of circumstances, have been preserved through all these years.” These features made the land adaptable to the needs of animal enclosures. Accessibility, to be reached by many from all classes and places, was another big consideration.

Prior to New York City’s ownership, much of the South Bronx Park land had been held by private landowners, including the ones who signed the 1802 deed above—an image I found during my work preserving WCS’s historical photo negative collection. Before these private landowners, however, the coastal Lenape known as the Unami lived in the Bronx River area. Their sister Lenape village, Quinnahung, was on the other side of the River near Clason Point. Indigenous Peoples were mindful of the River, viewing it as a watershed. The British viewed the River as a boundary between the groups and saw its potential for profit. This made the Bronx River, which was once clean enough to supply New York’s drinking water, highly polluted. To this day, the River still contains pollution.

Today, the Bronx River Alliance leads efforts to protect the Bronx River, and the Wildlife Conservation Society is a Bronx River Alliance partner.  The Bronx Zoo also has a history of Bronx River clean-up days, such as the one that resulted in the photo I found above.  According to the New York Zoological Society 1971 Annual Report, such clean-up days–which originally began as a project under the Community Affairs Officer’s coordination–were attended by Zoo personnel and local service and ecology groups, and set out to lay the groundwork for a more extensive Bronx River project in the future.

For more on the early history of the Bronx River, and what non-Indigenous people can learn from Indigenous connections to the environment and respect for wildlife, I recommend this Indigenous History of the Bronx River, from the Bronx River Alliance.  

This post was written by Matt Perelli, MA, CRA. An emerging professional archivist, Matt worked during Fall 2021-Spring 2022 on the WCS Archives’ Photo Preservation Project funded by a New York State Library Conservation/Preservation of Library Materials Grant.

Forty years ago, the public eagerly crowded into the Bronx Zoo’s Astor Court to mask up for wildlife.  “Thousands [of visitors] arriving as kids left as zebras, tigers, and cheetahs.”[1]  From 1983 until 1988, the Zoo Mask Weekend was one of many Zoo Celebrations “well known around the country and eagerly anticipated by the public and media of metropolitan New York.”[2]  The Zoo Mask Weekend celebrated wildlife and the world’s diversity of cultures, and allowed children to let loose their inner wild animal (not that they ever need an excuse.) 

We were saddened by the death last week of William Conway, who began his career at WCS as an assistant ornithology curator in 1956 and retired as its president in 1999. Dr. Conway is undoubtedly among the most pivotal figures in WCS’s history and in modern zoo and aquarium history. We will be reflecting on his legacy in the coming months, but for now, the WCS Archives is remembering the grit and the grace Dr. Conway brought to saving wildlife and wild places.

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This June we celebrate the multifaceted nature of all life around us. As the archival record shows, science is constantly evolving.  As we continue learning about the diversity of animal, plant, and human relationships and identities, the stronger and more resilient our scientific communities, and thus, our world, will become.

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The Zoo Shuttle at the Bronx Zoo has been helping visitors get around and see the zoo since 1940. It started as a way to “to insure the happiness and comfort of the visitor” by allowing everyone by allowing everyone, of all abilities, to experience the 265-acre park. In the 1960s the Education Department wrote lectures that were given on the shuttle, and it became referred to as the “Tiger Train.” This photo shows the Zoo Shuttle making its way through Fountain Circle in the 1950s.

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Since January, I have been interning at the WCS Library & Archives as part of the Moving Image Archiving and Preservation program at NYU. I worked with the WCS film collection inventory to prepare records for online access.

As with most things this last year, it was a somewhat strange experience, since I worked remotely despite living just a few miles from the Bronx Zoo. But working virtually allowed me to use part of my brain that doesn’t get much attention: my imagination. I had to imagine what “Gorilla dental treatment” or “Penguin House opening” might look like. Doing so allowed me to deduce additional information that wasn’t captured in the original inventory: who was involved, where it took place, whether other copies might exist. I could imagine what past inventories were aiming to record, like how items related to one another and what certain shorthand from the 1940s meant.

I also had to imagine the audience for these films. With my background in film history, I don’t know the first thing about zoology or wildlife conservation. But with a little imagination I could put myself in the shoes of one of these researchers. If I were a conservationist, what might I want to know about “The Curious Crabs of Singapore” or “Gardens Under the Sea”?

I hope that these imaginative skills stick around in our in-person work, for myself and the next person who has the pleasure of working on this collection. Even for a field that is concerned with evidence, authority, and documentation, thinking imaginatively can bring us new discoveries.

This post is by Sarah Hartzell, a Master’s student in NYU’s Moving Image Archiving and Preservation program.

These are some of the original labels that were used on the exhibits at the New York Aquarium when it was located at Castle Clinton in Battery Park. According to the then director of the Aquarium, Charles H. Townsend, the information on the labels reflected the questions most often posed by visitors including geographic distribution, abundance, size, commercial value, and importance as game.

This post is part of our series through the year to celebrate the New York Aquarium’s 125th Anniversary.

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