In 1817, the same year this broadside was issued, the menagerie at Exeter Change again changed hands when Edward Cross, an experienced traveling showman and animal dealer, bought the collection. Under Cross the menagerie experienced a phenomenal growth in both its collections and its popularity.
A broadside for a nineteenth-century London menagerie possessing a large number and variety of animals from across the globe. The reverse contains a poem entitled "A Public Supper," which advertises the animals on display in rhyme.
Three different tickets of admission for the Zoological Garden, Philadelphia. The Philadelphia Zoological Society was incorporated in 1859 and its Zoological Garden opened in 1874, making it among the first permanent zoos in the United States.
Begun by Gilbert Pidcock in the last decades of the eighteenth century, the Royal Menagerie at Exeter Change was purchased in 1810 by S. Polito, an experienced traveling menagerist. Both Pidcock and his successor successfully promoted their enterprise through enthusiastic advertising in the form of newspaper ads, handbills, and broadsides such as the one above.
Reprints a letter describing a specimen of white whale by Louis Agassiz which was originally printed in the Boston Journal. Issued only one year after broadside #480, Cutting and Butler had increased the size of their establishment to include 47 tanks of fish and other aquatic animals and 17 cages of terrestrial animals.