Human zoo

They're also called human zoos.

And the 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis is the largest ever recorded human zoo, a hideous practice of the 19th and 20th centuries.

The human zoo wasn't just some kind of sideshow attraction.

It wasn't just about the spectacle.

It was a projection of colonial power dressed up as an educational exhibit.

Tourists clapped like seals as men from all over the world performed for them.

But the anthropologists were taking notes and making measurements of their bodies.

While the Philippine village was the largest of these displays, the human zoo at the World's Fair also boasted a collection of Native Americans, Ainu people from Japan, Tlingit people from Alaska and British Columbia, and Tohuelche people, an indigenous group from Patagonia and South America.