ABSTRACT
This chapter shows a pattern of scientific racism, which Ota Benga and the visiting Eskimos experienced at the hands of the Zoo and the Zoos sister institution, The American Museum of Natural History, also in New York. The exhibitionary practices of these two institutions might be best understood as symptomatic of the doxa of natural history thinking in the US in the late nineteenth century and, unfortunately, beyond. The chapter traces the kind of racialized thinking, which fostered the collection and display of dinosaur remains, stuffed wild animals, Indian cultural objects, life-like dioramas featuring hunters and gatherers, and the occasional live Pygmy or Eskimo in the same scientific natural history display spaces. Indian removal and the labor of enslaved Africans are integral components of the founding identity of America. Racialized ideologies, accordingly, appeared early and persisted throughout history. Osborn embraced aspects of Darwinism, but resisted the universality of its model of evolution.
