Victorian Zoological Garden

Early European zoological collections were located in royal parks and gardens with cages and aviaries surrounded by unusual plants. In the U.S. zoos typically were inserted into new large and neighborhood urban parks under construction in the latter half of the nineteenth century. While Philadelphia chartered a zoo in 1859, it was not built until 1874, making the zoos in Baltimore (in Druid Hill Park) and New York (in Central Park) the first examples, followed closely by Chicago (in Lincoln Park). Popularity soared. Both the number of zoos and the variety and size of animal collections increased. For example, Buffalo, New York’s Zoological Gardens at The Park listed 48 animals in the collection in 1897, increasing to 138 by 1900.