In 1919, Sultana the polar bear gave birth to a cub named Zero and sparked a revolution.<\/p>\n
Until that point, zoos had been more concerned with entertaining the public than they were with the health and safety of the animals on display. Sultana herself lived in Milwaukee\u2019s Washington Park Zoo and was repeatedly bred over her lifetime, giving birth to 13 cubs.<\/p>\n
But Zero was special \u2013 he was the first ever polar bear cub born in a zoo in North America to survive to adulthood. His success inspired zoos to move away from entertainment and begin to focus more on education and conservation, a mission that continues today.<\/p>\n
Obviously, thought 51ÁÔÆæ history professor Amanda Seligman, that moment in Milwaukee history belonged on Twitter.<\/p>\n
Seligman teaches History 450, a class exploring Milwaukee\u2019s past. The curriculum covers the land\u2019s Indigenous people, the birth of the city, its influx of immigrants, its Socialist mayors, and more.<\/p>\n
The course culminates in a Twitter re-enactment of a historical event in the city, hosted in partnership with Milwaukee Public Museum educator Jaclyn Kelly, herself a 51ÁÔÆæ history alumna. Each year, Seligman chooses a significant event and asks her students to research the historical figures that played a role in its occurrence. Based on their findings, they create personas for each, make Twitter handles, and send out Tweets as if their historical figure had access to social media.<\/p>\n
This year\u2019s cast of historical characters included Edward Bean, the first director of the Washington Park Zoo; Milwaukee Socialist mayor Dan Hoan; fictional children visiting the zoo; and the polar bear mother, Sultana, among others.<\/p>\n
If the birth of the polar bear cub Zero captured Milwaukee\u2019s hearts back in 1919, it certainly captured Seligman\u2019s students\u2019 interest in 2021. But the real trick to picking a good historical event for a reenactment, she said, is finding one that stretches.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey illuminate both the moment that they\u2019re in, and how Milwaukee is positioned nationally and globally,\u201d she said. \u201cEven things that are small or obscure are connected to global events.\u201d<\/p>\n
In other words, the birth of Zero was about more than a polar bear cub. To lend authenticity to their characters, the students studied the end of World War I, the 1918 pandemic, socialist governance, and even the history of school field trips.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll of these things connected to Zero in a big spiderweb,\u201d said undergraduate teaching assistant Lillian Pachner.<\/p>\n
Seligman doesn\u2019t just stop at a Twitter reenactment, however. Students complete two additional projects in the class \u2013 one where they analyze a primary historical source, like an original newspaper article or photograph, and another where they curate a poster presentation around that primary source.<\/p>\n
Then, they take work to the public. Seligman had her class give their talks both at the Milwaukee County Zoo and at the Milwaukee Public Museum.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe work they\u2019re doing in terms of making presentations, translating primary sources \u2026 is directly applicable to careers beyond 51ÁÔÆæ. I see it as having real professional development for our students,\u201d Seligman said.<\/p>\n
Pachner got a little more development than most. She took History 450 in 2020, when the Twitter reenactment centered around Milwaukee\u2019s first weather forecast, delivered by Increase Lapham.<\/p>\n
Pachner is self-admitted history nerd, so she was delighted when Seligman approached her after last year\u2019s class with a new assignment: Create a bibliography of primary sources from the 51ÁÔÆæ Archives so that students in the 2021 class had documents with which to conduct their research. Pachner spent the summer wading through old Milwaukee Zoological Society records, newspaper clippings, and photographs to find a host of primary sources. She was helped along with a 51ÁÔÆæ SURF award (Support for Undergraduate Research Fellows).<\/p>\n
\u201cI had never done anything like that,\u201d Pachner reflected. \u201cI can\u2019t believe I get to do this. It\u2019s the coolest thing ever. I\u2019m only 21 and I don\u2019t have my degree, but I get to do this research with an amazing, respected professor.\u201d<\/p>\n
Running a historical figure\u2019s Twitter account is more difficult than it sounds.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was really hard taking all of these little nuggets of history and turning them into something our characters would say,\u201d Nicholas Baumgart reflected.<\/p>\n
He took Seligman\u2019s class this fall and played two characters during the reenactment: Frederick Law Olmsted, a landscape architect who designed parks and recreation areas across the country and in Milwaukee, and Edward Bean.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s credited for building the zoo up to what it is today,\u201d Baumgart noted.<\/p>\n
Bean was the first to notice the birth of Zero; Baumgart says that while not much was known about polar bear gestation and birth, Bean did know a bit about bears. He reportedly threw some hay into Sultana\u2019s enclosure and left the pair alone for four months, allowing Zero to grow strong and healthy before introducing him to the Milwaukee public.<\/p>\n
Baumgart found other interesting mentions of Bean as well, including in the newspaper article he used to give his presentations at the Milwaukee County Zoo and the Public Museum. The clipping reported on a leopard escaping its enclosure at the zoo 10 years after the fact.<\/p>\n
When it came time to write his Tweets, \u201cI chose Edward Bean to be kind of a stereotypical frat boy,\u201d Baumgart laughed. \u201cIt made it not-so-serious.\u201d<\/p>\n
For the reenactment, the students met in a large, windowed room at Milwaukee Public Museum. They had drafted 20 Tweets each for their characters and a narrator account, and wrote a script so everyone would know which Tweet to send in what order to build the narrative. The reenactment took about three hours.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had done such hard work that (when we finished) it felt like the end of a staged play,\u201d Pachner said.<\/p>\n
The Twitter reenactment is a unique way to bring a little slice of Milwaukee history to the world, she added. \u201cIt\u2019s the perfect way to make history so accessible. \u2026 It\u2019s on your phone!\u201d<\/p>\n
View 51ÁÔÆæ History 450\u2019s Twitter reenactment of the \u201cBirth of Zero\u201d by searching the hashtag #MKEZero.<\/p>\n
By Sarah Vickery<\/strong>, College of Letters & Science<\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In 1919, Sultana the polar bear gave birth to a cub named Zero and sparked a revolution. Until that point, zoos had been more concerned with entertaining the public than they were with the health and safety of the animals …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28112,"featured_media":17387,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","uwm_wg_additional_authors":[]},"categories":[1734],"tags":[1851],"class_list":["post-17372","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-in-focus-2022","tag-january"],"yoast_head":"\n