From Spectacle to Specimen
Exploring Itinerant Showpeople’s Roles in Circulating Natural History Knowledge in Nineteenth-Century Western Europe
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.55283/jhk.18022Keywords:
itinerant showpeople, travelling menageries, knowledge actors, science, art, education, natural historyAbstract
Amidst the nineteenth-century funfair, traveling menageries were an important and lucrative attraction providing light-hearted entertainment as well as circulating knowledge on natural history. This article delves into the multifaceted nature of knowledge creation, facilitation, and circulation by focusing on menageries as knowledge arenas, their owners as knowledge actors, and exotic animals as knowledge objects. Menagerie proprietors had different roles as entertainer, entrepreneur, expert, and facilitator: bridging gaps between various social groups, institutions, and geographical locations that resonated far beyond the confines of the fairground. It was this facilitating role that allowed menageries to function as multifaceted knowledge arenas: becoming an entertainment venue, school, artist atelier, or laboratory depending on the people that menagerie owners interacted with; and in its wake transforming these exotic animals into study objects, paintings, photos, and specimens. While knowledge creation, facilitation, and circulation are intertwined processes, engaging a diverse array of actors, research has oftentimes focused more on knowledge creators, offering a partial view. In exploring the multifaceted nature of knowledge, this article draws attention to the often invisible actors that played a facilitating role in the process of knowledge circulation.
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