ENCYCLOPEDIA OF POPULAR CULTURE ZOOT SUIT

Hand in hand with redesign came an interest in conservation, Bostock, Stephen St. C. Zoos and Animal Rights: The Ethics of
most of it dependent on highly developed technologies. In fact, zoos Keeping Animals. New York, Routledge, 1993.
already had a long history as breeding-grounds for scientific discov- Croke, Vicki. The Modern Ark. New York, Avon, 1997.
ery and research: In the eighteenth century, visits to the Swedish royal
menagerie inspired Carl von Linné (Linnaeus) to develop the latinate Hahn, Emily. Animal Gardens. New York, Doubleday, 1967.
system of binomial nomenclature by which animals and plants have Hoage, R. J., and William A. Deiss, editors. New Worlds, New
been classified ever since, and post-Industrial Revolution zoos were Animals. Baltimore, Johns Hopkins, 1996.
considered valuable resources for natural historians and taxidermists.
Livingston, Bernard. Zoo Animals, People, Places. New York, Arbor
In the mid-twentieth century, as human concern for the environment
House, 1974.
mounted, zoo animals took on a new function, as agents of global
salvation. By means of captive breeding programs, including Lord Zuckerman, editor. Great Zoos of the World: Their Origins and
cryogenically frozen eggs and sperm, zoos set out to become latter- Significance. Boulder, Colorado, Westview Press, 1980.
day arks, saving species from what many people saw as inevitable
extinction due to expanding industrialism and consequent environ-
mental catastrophe. There was also a concern with preserving not just
an animal’s body, but its natural behaviors (including mating, predation, Zoot Suit
foraging, and leisure activities) as well. These new interests, like the
surge in redesign, were perhaps the indirect result of the technology
used in TV’s nature programs and cinema’s special effects: Zoos had The zoot suit was a style of clothing popularized by young male
to become more ‘‘authentic,’’ too. African Americans, Filipino Americans, and Mexican Americans
This emphasis on conservation was seen by some as ironic, during the 1930s and 1940s. A zoot suit consisted of very baggy high-
given the depredations that had taken place as industrial-era zoos waisted pants, pegged around the ankles, worn with a long jacket that
were first stocked. Until the Endangered Species Act was passed in came to below the knee. The jacket had high, wide shoulder pads that
1973, famous animal suppliers such as Frank Buck regularly ventured jetted out from the shoulder, giving the wearer a broad look. A long
into the wild to slaughter adult animals and bring the babies back
alive. But by the end of the millennium there seemed to be little doubt
that preservation of individuals and conservation of species, as well as
enrichment of captive lives, were high priorities. Accredited zoos
joined a worldwide breeding network; under the SSPs, or Species
Survival Plans, sperm and eggs were frozen, live animals shipped
from one end of the globe to the other in order to mate. Some embryos
of rare animals, such as zebras, were gestated inside more common
species, such as domestic horses. Yet even with their best efforts and
most sophisticated technology, zoos estimated that they could save
only about 900 of the 2,000 vertebrate species expected to go extinct
by the year 2000.
With the cryogenic zoo, humankind became more than ever the
race that had mastered all others. Even as most zoological gardens
attempted to educate visitors about the beauty and importance of wild
animals and plants, other workers behind the scenes were manipulat-
ing nature with their test tubes and psychotropic medications; zoos
were thus a combination of television-era entertainment, lite news,
and science fiction. It must be emphasized that most of those
scientists and keepers—and many fee-paying visitors—were indeed
motivated by high ideals such as respect for other species, rather than
the appetite for self-aggrandizement that marked older zoos. But the
desire to rescue those species nonetheless may be said to stem from
the old impulse to control nature and make use of it as something both
antithetical and complementary to human civilization. In New Worlds,
New Animals, Michael H. Robinson, onetime director of the Smithso-
nian Institution’s National Zoological Park, placed the drive to collect
living things and ‘‘alter [. . . ] them for our benefit’’ at the origin of
civilization. The twentieth-century zoo, like its predecessors, was a
living (though increasingly cryogenic) embodiment of that drive.

—Susann Cokal

FURTHER READING:
Bartlett, A. D. Wild Animals in Captivity. London, Chapman and
Hall, 1899. A zoot suit.

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chain dangled from the belt, and the outfit was trimmed with thick-
soled shoes and a wide-brimmed hat. It was the style of very hip cats.
It is believed the style was created in the African-American communi-
ty, and there are several stories as to where it actually originated.
In the urban jazz culture of Harlem, the word ‘‘zoot’’ meant
something exaggerated, either in style, sound, or performance. The
style of dress was an extravagant style, out of proportion to the norm,
and it later came to be known as the zoot suit, which consisted of ‘‘a
killer-diller coat with a drape-shape, reat-pleats and shoulders padded
like a lunatic’s cell.’’ The suit was for having fun, with the baggy
pants made for dancing the jitterbug, and the long coat and the wide-
brimmed hat giving the wearer a grown-up look. Many famous black
entertainers and musicians wore the zoot suit. Duke Ellington per-
formed at the Orpheum Theatre in Los Angeles in 1941 with a musical
number called ‘‘Jump for Joy,’’ and all his performers wore zoot
suits. Cab Calloway wore a zoot suit in the 1943 film Stormy Weather.
One theory of the origins of the zoot suit was that it was imitated
from the suit worn by Clark Cable in the movie Gone with the Wind.
In fact, some people called them ‘‘Gone with the Wind suits.’’ Others
say that a big band leader and clothier, Harold C. Fox from Chicago,
designed the first zoot suit. He said he copied the fashions of ghetto-
dwelling teenagers, and in 1941 made such suits for musicians who
wanted an ‘‘eye-poppin’ style.’’ When Fox died in 1996 at the age of
86, he was buried in a lavender zoot suit. The most believed story is
one published in the New York Times in 1943 during the zoot suit riots
taking place in Los Angeles, stating that a young African-American
busboy from Gainesville, Georgia, placed an order with a tailor for
what would be the ‘‘first zoot suit on record.’’ Clyde Duncan ordered
a suit with a 37-inch-long coat and with pants 26 inches at the knees
and 14 inches at the ankle. Once the suit was made, the tailor took his
picture and sent it to Men’s Apparel Reporter, where the photo
was printed.
On the West Coast, the suit came to be identified with young
Mexican Americans, known as Pachucos. They were mostly second-
generation Mexicans, the sons of working-class immigrants, who
settled in Los Angeles. Pachucos created a subculture with a mysteri-
ous argot that incorporated archaic Spanish, modern Spanish, and
English slang words. They dressed in zoot suits, creating a distinct
style that identified them as neither Mexican nor American, but that
emphasized their social detachment and isolation. Because there was
a war going on, and there was conservation of fabric, wearing the zoot
suit was considered an unpatriotic act. In the summer of 1943, while
the whole country watched, gangs of sailors and zoot-suiters fought in
the streets of Los Angeles. Outraged at the zoot suit style, sailors
chased the zoot suiters through the streets and unclothed them. It is
unclear if this was a race riot or a riot of patriotism by the sailors who
attacked, beat, and stripped young Mexican Americans whom they
perceived to be disloyal immigrants.
The zoot suit received wide attention and recognition in the
1970s with the production of the play Zoot Suit, written and produced
by Luis Valdez. It was performed in Los Angeles and New York. A
film of the play, with the same name, was released in 1981 with
performances by actors Daniel Valdez and Edward James Olmos.
In the late 1990s, the zoot suit has had a rebirth with the revival
of swing music—with imitations of Cab Calloway, the zoot suit, and
the jump dance steps. From Chicago to San Francisco, twenty-
somethings were dancing to big bands with names like Mighty Blue
Kings, The Big Six, Bag Bad Voodoo Daddy, and Indigo Swing, who
played swing music from the 1930s and 1940s. Part of the fun of this
music was dancing at the big clubs and wearing the clothes to match.
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ENCYCLOPEDIA OF POPULAR CULTURE
A 1996 article in the Los Angeles Times claimed that fashion
designers such as Bill Blass and Ralph Lauren were picking up the
zoot suit look in their fall designs, including wide jacket lapels and
hip-chains, but not the big shoulders. In 1999, numerous suppliers of
zoot suits and swing-style clothing were listed on the Internet.
—Rafaela Castro
FURTHER READING:
Cosgrove, Stuart. ‘‘The Zoot Suit and Style Warfare.’’ In Zoot Suits
and Second-Hand Dresses: An Anthology of Fashion and Music,
edited by Angela McRobbie. London, Macmillan, 1989, 3-22.
Eig, Jonathan. ‘‘Swing Kids.’’ Down Beat. Vol. 64, No. 12, Decem-
ber 1997, 56-62.
———. ‘‘’Zoot Suit’ Fox Dead at Age 86.’’ Down Beat. Vol. 63, No.
11, November 1996, 16-18.
Rourke, Mary. ‘‘A Suitable Enterprise for the Counterculture: Reflec-
tions on the Zoot Suit.’’ Los Angeles Times. Vol. 115, August 5,
1996, E1.
Sanchez, Thomas. Zoot-suit Murders: A Novel. New York,
Dutton, 1978.
Tyler, Bruce. ‘‘Zoot-Suit Culture and the Black Press.’’ Journal of
American Culture. Vol. 17, No. 2, 1994, 21-33.
White, Shane, and Graham White. Stylin’: African American Expres-
sive Culture from Its Beginnings to the Zoot Suit. Ithaca, New
York, Cornell University Press, 1998.
Zorro
Zorro, the sword-wielding, black-clad avenger, is one of the
most influential fictional characters of twentieth century literature.
By day he was Don Diego, a respected nobleman of nineteenth
century California. By night, however, he cut a much more dashing
figure as ‘‘The Fox,’’ El Zorro. Dressed completely in black with a
mask and wide-brimmed hat to conceal his identity, Zorro battled
evildoers with the aid of his whip and sword, and made fast getaways
on his black steed, Tornado. He was a superbly talented fencer—only
Cyrano de Bergerac, D’Artagnan, and the Three Musketeers can
challenge him for the title of fiction’s most popular swordsman. No
matter where he went, he always signed his work with a distinctive Z,
often cut into the clothing or skin of his enemies.
Zorro’s adventures have been chronicled in many different
media. Created by writer Johnston McCulley in 1919 for ‘‘The Curse
of Capistrano,’’ which was serialized in the pulp magazine All-Story
Weekly, Zorro is the oldest of the modern superheroes. McCulley
would write a total of 65 adventures of the black-clad avenger over the
next 39 years. Since Zorro’s introduction, countless characters have
been created using the same basic theme: a normally law-abiding
individual who is faced with great injustice and takes up a mask and
secret identity to right wrongs and protect the innocent. Moreover,
Zorro’s devil-may-care attitude, mastery with the sword, daring
escapes, and tendency to laugh in the face of authority have become
common traits of swashbuckling heroes.
Though he began as a pulp magazine character, Zorro soared to
popularity as a movie character. In all, Zorro has been featured in 37
movies, plus a number of Republic serialized adventures. Zorro’s first