The term "menagerie", first used in seventeenth century France, was primarily used to refer to aristocratic or royal animal collections.
Most visitors to travelling menageries would never have the opportunity to see such animals under other circumstances and their arrival in a town would catalyse great excitement.
The shows were both entertaining and educational; in 1872 The Scotsman described George Wombwell's travelling menagerie as "[having] done more to familiarise the minds of the masses of our people with the denizens of the forest than all the books of natural history ever printed during its wandering existence.
[2] In contrast to the aristocratic menageries, these travelling animal collections were run by showmen who met the craving for sensation of the ordinary population.
[4] In 1834 James and William Howes’ New York Menagerie toured New England with an elephant, a rhinoceros, a camel, a zebra, a wildebeest, two tigers, a polar bear, and several parrots and monkeys.