SI Records
Smithsonian Institution Archives, Record Unit 74, National Zoological Park, Records
In 1989 the National Zoological Park celebrated its centennial. However, as early as 1855 the Smithsonian had received gifts of live animals. In addition, the United States National Museum acquired living animals for life studies in order to create lifelike specimens for exhibit in the Museum. Since there were no facilities for caring for animals not used as specimens, those animals were either transferred to the Superintendent of the United States Insane Asylum (now St. Elizabeth's Hospital) for the amusement of its patients or else sent to the Philadelphia Zoological Garden.
However, parochial needs were not the only source for the idea of a national zoological park. During the last quarter of the nineteenth century there was growing concern that a number of animals would soon become extinct in their natural habitats, among them the American buffalo. William T. Hornaday, taxidermist at the Institution since 1882, had found the National Museum with only a few inferior specimens of the buffalo; and, with the support of Secretary Spencer F. Baird, he traveled to Montana in May and again in September of 1886 to collect specimens while they could still be had. Hornaday was able to collect numerous specimens. However, the state of the buffalo herds he observed during these trips evidently affected him deeply. In 1888, he published his The Extermination of the American Bison. Already, in March 1887 he had proposed to Secretary Baird that a zoological park be established in Washington under the Smithsonian's direction. Baird died before anything could be done; but in October 1887, with the consent of the new Secretary, Samuel P. Langley, a new Division of Living Animals was created in the U. S. National Museum and Hornaday was made its curator. In 1888 Hornaday had, at Secretary Langley's direction, undertaken a survey of land along Rock Creek in northwest Washington lying between the White House and Georgetown to determine its suitability as a zoo site.
The National Zoological Park was established by an Act of Congress in March 1889. The Secretary of the Smithsonian, the Secretary of the Interior, and the President of the Board of Commissioners of the District of Columbia, were constituted as Commissioners of a National Zoological Park in order to purchase land for a zoo in the District of Columbia, "...for the advancement of science and the instruction and recreation of the people." The commissioners ultimately acquired one hundred and sixty-four acres at this site, some by condemnation, most by purchase. In April 1890 Congress passed another act, placing the National Zoological Park under the direction of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution. Half its operating funds were to come from the federal government, half from the District of Columbia. The Board was authorized to expend funds, transfer and exchange specimens, accept gifts, and to generally oversee Zoo operations.
Secretary Langley wanted the best professional advice in planning the layout and design of the Park, and Frederick Law Olmsted, the noted landscape architect, was consulted about all aspects of the Park's layout and design, including pathways, animal enclosures, public access, and the like. Copies of Olmsted's drawings and sketches are at the National Zoological Park today. In practice, however, much of Olmsted's advice was ignored, either because the Park lacked funds to follow his plans or because Secretary Langley often chose to follow his own counsel.
Hornaday became the first Superintendent of the Park but soon resigned because of differences of opinion with Secretary Langley over the scope of the superintendent's authority to control Park operations. In 1890 Frank Baker, Assistant Superintendent of the Light House Service, was appointed Acting Manager in place of Hornaday. From 1893 to until his retirement in 1916 Baker served as superintendent. These early years were full of difficulties. While the Rock Creek site had much natural charm, it was necessary to balance the demands for building construction, park layout and roads, and acquisition of animals--all on an extremely tight budget. Still, as the more mundane affairs of the Park moved slowly forward, there were important "firsts" as well. In 1891 Dunk and Gold Dust, the Park's first elephants, arrived. They were great favorites at the Park, notwithstanding their reputations as troublemakers in the circus which sold them to their new owner. That same year came French, the first lion, then only a cub, who was sold to the Park after he began to alarm the neighbors of his owner in Alderson, West Virginia. During its early years the Park was also the site of Secretary Langley's efforts to study and film the flight of birds, work he undertook as part of his effort to produce a manned flying machine.
On Baker's retirement in 1916, Ned Hollister, an assistant curator of mammals in the U. S. National Museum, was appointed to succeed him. Hollister served until his death in 1924. During his tenure the Park continued to receive very modest appropriations. On that account, it was not possible to purchase much zoo stock; but gifts were numerous. In 1922, they ranged from an opossum given by President Harding to the 15 mammals, 50 birds, and 17 reptiles collected by William M. Mann while on expedition with the Mulford Biological Exploration of the Amazon Basin. Housing for the animals remained inadequate, and many old structures had to remain in use. In 1924 the Park did manage to construct its first restaurant for the use of visitors, who numbered more than 2.4 million people in that year. Superintendent Hollister died in 1924 and was succeeded by Alexander Wetmore, who served only five months before leaving to become Assistant Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution.
In 1925, Dr. William M. Mann became Superintendent (Director after 1926) of the National Zoological Park, a job he was to hold until his retirement in 1956. He hoped to build a zoo which housed a first-class collection in a first-class environment. As in the past, there was little money for purchase of animals, so he continued to rely on gifts. Mann was a good publicist, and he enlisted the sympathies of Walter P. Chrysler. On March 20, 1926, the Smithsonian-Chrysler Expedition set out, arriving at Dar-es-Salaam, Tanganyika, on May 5 of that year. The expedition was a splendid success and returned with 158 mammals, 584 birds, 56 snakes, 12 lizards, 393 tortoises, and 1 frog. Many specimens, like the giraffe, were quite new to the Park. The male and female impala obtained were the only ones in any zoo in the world at that time.
On his return, Mann finally succeeded in obtaining an appropriation for a new bird house to replace the one erected 37 years before. A reptile house followed in 1929. In 1935 some of the Zoo's remaining need for new buildings was finally met. The Public Works Administration, a New Deal relief program, allocated $680,000 for the construction of a Small Mammal and Great Ape House, a Pachyderm House, an addition to the Bird House, and several operations buildings. One of the New Deal's programs for the relief of artists, the Treasury Department's Section of Painting and Sculpture, furnished artists to decorate areas of the Zoo. In fact, the Park employed more artists than any other local institution.
In 1937 the Park was once more the beneficiary of a collecting expedition, the National Geographic Society-Smithsonian Institution Expedition to the Dutch East Indies. Mann brought back with him 74 crates of mammals, 112 crates of birds, and 30 crates of reptiles. In 1940 Harvey Firestone, Jr., offered to finance a collecting expedition to Liberia. Again, the expedition supplied the Park with many specimens, including a female pygmy hippopotamus, Matilda, as companion for the lonely Billy, already at the Park.
When World War II began, the Zoo could not escape its effects. In fact, in 1942 for fear that poisonous snakes might be released from their cages if the Reptile House were struck by an air raid, all the Park's collection of cobras and other venomous snakes was traded to other locations less likely to undergo air attacks. Subsequently, the Park spent some time making repairs and resuming normal activities. In 1956 Dr. Mann retired and was succeeded by acting Director Theodore H. Reed, who was made Director in 1958. In 1958 the Friends of the National Zoo, a group dedicated to supporting the National Zoo and maintaining its reputation as one of the world's great zoos, was organized. In 1960 the Park's budget exceeded a million dollars for the first time. For many years the formula which charged half the Park's expenses to the budget of the District of Columbia had caused a great deal of difficulty. Local residents felt they were being taxed to pay for an institution national in character. Park officials argued that they needed more money than the existing formula could provide. Finally, in 1961, a compromise was reached. All costs for construction and repair of the Park would be carried in the appropriation for the Smithsonian Institution. The District of Columbia would contribute only to the Park's operating costs. As if to give the new arrangement a good send-off, in 1962 Congress appropriated four million dollars for the Park, more than half of it earmarked for a perimeter road around the Zoo and a tunnel to carry automobile traffic through the Zoo. In this way, it was at last possible to close the Park proper to through traffic and to devote the Park reservation solely to strengthening and improving the National Zoological Park's programs.
The earliest records concerning the National Zoological Park date from 1887. They were kept by the Office of the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution until 1890, when they were transferred to Holt House, the Park's administrative headquarters. During the late 1960's the records were transferred to the custody of the Smithsonian Institution Archives. The finding aid for these records was first written in 1972 and revised in 1989.
The Archives would like to thank Dr. Theodore H. Reed, former director of the National Zoological Park, and Sybil E. Hamlet, Public Information Officer, NZP, for their support and assistance in the transfer of the records to the Archives, and in providing historical information necessary for the processing of these records.
The records of the National Zoological Park document the development of the Park, from the site survey work begun by William T. Hornaday in 1888 through the beginnings of its modernization plans in 1965.
Several series of records are of particular importance. They include records of the National Zoological Park Commission, 1889-1891, and records created by William T. Hornaday, who had a significant part to play in the early development of the Park. Some of these records also demonstrate the important influence of Secretary Samuel P. Langley, who succeeded in persuading Congress to authorize the Park, and who kept it under his close personal supervision until he died in 1906. This material consists of minutes of the founding Commission, plats, maps, blueprints, photographs, and correspondence documenting acquisition of land for the Park, as well as records detailing the Park's changing boundaries, layouts of buildings and grounds, and construction of buildings. A more detailed description of the Park's correspondence system can be found in series 12 through 14. Additional information regarding the Commission's activities and Langley's close involvement with the Zoo may be found in Record Unit 31, the incoming correspondence of the Office of the Secretary (Samuel P. Langley), 1891-1906, and related records to 1908, and Record Unit 34, the Secretary's outgoing correspondence, 1887-1907.
Correspondence in these records embraces a number of other subjects as well. Acquisition of specimens is extensively documented. Animals were obtained from donors, from dealers in wild animals, from circuses, from American military and diplomatic personnel, from participation in various American expositions, and from expeditions abroad for the purpose of collecting animals for the Park. Collections gathered abroad came from the Smithsonian-Roosevelt African Expedition (1909), the Smithsonian-Chrysler Expedition (1926-1927), the Argentine Expedition (1938-1939), the Antarctic Expedition (1939-1940), and the Firestone-Smithsonian Expedition (1940-1941). In addition, the Park provided specimen exhibitions and built facilities for several expositions, including the Pan-American Exposition (1901-1902), the Louisiana Purchase Exposition (1904), the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition (1909), and the Panama-Pacific International Exposition (1914-1917). Record Unit 70 documents the Smithsonian's participation in expositions in detail.
The records also document the more mundane aspects of Park administration. There is considerable correspondence between the Park's director and colleagues at other institutions at home and abroad, and with various federal agencies. There is particularly full documentation of dealings with federal offices in control of animal quarantine regulations and with the rebuilding of the Park by various New Deal agencies in the 1930's. There are daily diaries of the superintendents, directors, and assistant directors of the Park (1895-1930), as well as diaries and daily reports of various subordinate staff members.
Lastly, records of the Park document Samuel P. Langley's 1901-1903 research on the flight of birds, Frank Baker's survey of private and public zoological parks and his buffalo census, 1902-1905, and Baker's involvement on a subcommittee entrusted with recommending a site for a zoological park to the New York Zoological Society.
This record series is indexed under the following controlled access subject terms.
This series contains diaries created by the administrator and associate in charge of the National Zoological Park, whether his title was director, assistant director, superintendent or assistant superintendent. Information with the thirty-six diaries includes a selected listing of NZP events, some important, others mundane; notices of appointments and important visitors; records of staff attendance; and weather reports for each day during this period.
These records document various aspects of routine operations by the Zoo staff.
These records document the accessioning of animals for the Zoo collection and their subsequent removal from the collection by sale, exchange, or death. Visitor attendance reports are also included.
These records document some of the proceedings of the National Zoological Park Commission and its agents. Additional records on this topic are in boxes 288 and 289.
These records consist of congressional documents containing Secretary Langley's reports to congressional oversight committees on expenditures made at the National Zoological Park.
This series consists of the Director's official outgoing correspondence, July 3, 1889 to June 9, 1927, in sixty-eight indexed volumes. It includes correspondence by William T. Hornaday, Frank Baker, Ned Hollister, Alexander Wetmore, and William M. Mann, who were variously the director, superintendent, or acting manager of the National Zoological Park. Beginning with correspondence on April 2, 1900, the NZP numbered its volumes, 1-57.
National Zoological Park General Letters October 20, 1917 to October 21, 1918, Page 375 [Image No. SIA2013-00209]
National Zoological Park General Letters October 20, 1917 to October 21, 1918, Page 321 [Image No. SIA2013-00208]
National Zoological Park General Letters October 20, 1917 to October 21, 1918, Page 485 [Image No. SIA2013-00210]
These letters comprise the Director's correspondence with other officials of the Smithsonian Institution and also contain copies of NZP annual reports. Thirteen indexed letterpress volumes. April 2, 1900-July 31, 1931.
These volumes contain letterpress correspondence from Samuel P. Langley, Charles D. Walcott, and Richard Rathbun regarding the NZP.
These records provide information about animals shipped as exchange specimens to other zoos.
These records consist of correspondence and voucher abstracts.
These records document requests for printing and binding services from the U.S. Government Printing Office in order to meet a part of the Zoo's publication needs.
These records constitute the Zoo's main incoming correspondence file for the period from 1887 through 1900. The correspondence is accompanied by three oversize volumes of register numbers, which provide access to the material. The registers and the correspondence are broken down into seven numerical subject file categories: (1) Animals, 1890-1900; (2) Applications, 1889-1900; (3) Bids, 1889-1900; (4) Construction, 1889-1899; (5) Improvements, 1890-1900; (6) Miscellaneous, 1887-1900; (7) Smithsonian, 1888-1900.
Volume one of the registers contains all seven file subject categories, while volumes two and three are a continuation of subject categories one and six. The register entries provide the name of the correspondent, correspondent's address, date when letter was written and received, a short summary of the letter and a register number, which is also written on the letter. Register numbers are sequential. The incoming correspondence within each subject file category is arranged alphabetically by correspondent and by register number thereunder. For the most part the arrangement by register number forms a chronological arrangement of the letters themselves.
Important correspondents within this series include Samuel P. Langley, whose letters in file category seven emphasize his role in the establishment of the NZP and his personal interest in its administration. Other important correspondents are Arthur B. Baker; William H. Blackburne; Frank Baker; G. Brown Goode; William Temple Hornaday; William Crawford Winlock; Frederick William True; Richard Rathbun; Frederick Law Olmsted and Company; Olmsted, Olmsted, and Eliot; Frederick Law Olmsted; John Charles Olmsted; and William W. Karr, under whose name the financial statements of the NZP, 1891-1894, are located.
These records contain both incoming and outgoing correspondence, divided among some 400 numbered subject topics. The same numbers were then assigned to correspondence as it was prepared or received. In some cases these numbers were also written on the correspondence in the outgoing letterpress copybooks, series 6 through 11, which makes it possible to move back and forth between the series in some instances. Following this series entry is a list of subjects arranged consecutively by subject number, which should facilitate matching incoming and outgoing correspondence.
Young Elephants and a Group of Unidentified People in a Forest Clearing, c. 1918 (folder 7) [Image No. SIA2008-0923]
Letter from Ned Hollister to Mr. R. C. Deming about the turkey "Col. Jake Dawson," June 6, 1918 [Image No. SIA2013-00213]
Letter from Ned Hollister to Rufus Hardy, October 9, 1918 [Image No. SIA2013-00211]
Letter from Mr. R. C. Deming to Zoo Superintendent Ned Hollister, June 4, 1918 [Image No. SIA2013-00215]
Letter from Mr. R. C. Deming to Zoo Superintendent Ned Hollister, with note, June 4, 1918 [Image No. SIA2013-00214]
Letter from Rufus Hardy to Ned Hollister, October 11, 1918 [Image No. SIA2013-00216]
Note from Zoo keeper William Blackburne in reference to two famous turkeys, June 8, 1918 [Image No. SIA2013-00212]
Sketch of bird when its wings are extended in the attitude of flight (folder 7) [Image No. SIA2018-110263]
Sketch of birds soaring horizontally (folder 7) [Image No. SIA2018-110264]
American Association of Park Superintendents, 1910 (folder 6) [Image No. 94-512]
Bill of Fare for a Restaurant at National Zoological Park (folder 14) [Image No. SIA2013-11053]
Map of the National Zoological Park [Image No. SIA2012-9673]
Note regarding interview with Joel Walker, February 19, 1908 (folder 1) [Image No. SIA2016-011421]
Letter from Frank Baker, NZP Director, to Secretary Charles D. Walcott, February 19, 1908 (folder 1) [Image No. SIA2016-011420]
Letter from Cyrus Adler, Assistant Secretary, to Frank Baker, Superintendent of the National Zoo February 21, 1908 (folder 1) [Image No. SIA2016-011422]
This series contains the incoming and outgoing correspondence of the Office of the Director of the Park. However, there is some material from other offices as well, since the director's correspondence file was, in part, used as a central office file for the Park as a whole. The records are arranged alphabetically by subject and chronologically thereunder. A 1953 filing plan for the Park was used in reconstructing the record order of the material.
Workers Building Trails for National Zoological Park, 1934 [Image No. 2003-19549]
Workers Laying Water Main at National Zoological Park, 1934 [Image No. 2003-19579]
Civil Works Administration Workers Laying Water Main Pipes, 1934 [Image No. 2003-19547]
Construction at National Zoo, 1933 [Image No. 94-516]
National Zoological Park Construction, 1934 [Image No. 94-517]
National Zoological Park Construction, 1936 [Image No. 94-513]
Tympanum Over Doorway to Building for Pachyderms, November 12, 1936 [Image No. SIA2008-0924]
Restaurant of the National Zoo, 1940 [Image No. 94-518]
Small Mammal House Construction, NZP, 1936 [Image No. 94-514]
William and Lucy Mann Meeting Austin and Leila Clark, 1938 [Image No. 2003-19550]
The reports in this series contain information regarding the accessioning of animals at the National Zoological Park, their births, physical condition, and deaths, as well as animal injuries, eating habits, and accidents. In addition, the reports include information on repairs needed for the animal cages, and the attendance records of departmental staff. This material is arranged in chronological order.
This series consists of two bound volumes containing time and attendance information for the Department of Living Animals, United States National Museum and the National Zoological Park. The animals that were housed and sheltered by the Department of Living Animals behind the Smithsonian Building became the original inhabitants of the NZP collection, and William T. Hornaday, curator of the Department, became the NZP's first superintendent. These volumes include attendance records and salaries earned by staff of both administrative bodies.
Arranged Chronologically.
Drawing of a Monkey at the NZP [Image No. 77-11428]
Drawing of Keeper Weedon at the NZP, c. 1887-1900 [Image No. 77-11419]
Drawing of a Bald Eagle at the NZP, c. 1887-1900 [Image No. 77-11427]
Drawing of a Grizzly Bear at NZP [Image No. 77-11423]
Drawing of Goats at the NZP [Image No. 77-11426]
Drawing of a Wapiti at the NZP, c. 1890s [Image No. 77-11425]
Drawing of Two Bison at the NZP, c. 1887-1900 [Image No. 77-11424]
Drawing of Owls at the NZP [Image No. 77-11421]
Drawing of a Swinging Monkey at the NZP [Image No. 77-11422]
Drawing of Two Bison at Smithsonian, c. 1887-1900 [Image No. 77-11420]
Drawing of a Jaguar at the NZP [Image No. 77-11417]
Drawing of the Animal Building at the NZP [Image No. 77-11416]
Drawing of the Glass Tent at the NZP [Image No. 77-11415]
The following records were added to this record unit after the original finding aid was completed. Researchers should consult series 4 for similar material.