| Item Description: | Michael Laird, bookseller, description: "Susie" was the first fully trained and educated gorilla, and for quite some time the only trained gorilla in the world. Offered here is a small archive of three items, most notable being the scarce brochure describes Susie's life (written in the first person, "as told by her to her trainer, William Dressman"). Susie, originally named Kivie or Kivi, was born in late 1926 in the Kivu Mountains of the Belgian Congo, in an area that is now on the border between the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda. At six months, a group of Pygmies killed Susie’s parents and sold her to an expedition of French explorers, according to Caroline (Lohrum) Dressman’s pamphlet, titled “Brief History of ‘Susie’ World Famous Gorilla” published in 1939. These Frenchman shipped Susie to France and it was here that she was given the name Susi, which was eventually changed to Susie. After touring Europe, and a brief stay in Germany, Susie was put aboard the Graf-Zeppelin, a sister vessel to the Hindenburg, in August 1929 and shipped to Lakehurst, New Jersey. This is most likely the place where she first met William H. Dressman, although some sources state that he accompanied her to the United States from Europe. After a brief tour across the United States and Canada, Robert J. Sullivan bought Susie for $4500.00 and in 1931 he put her on permanent loan to the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden under Dressman’s care. While in Cincinnati, Susie became somewhat of a celebrity and was given a birthday party every year. Her celebrity was largely the result of shows she would perform, during which she would eat with a knife and fork – a trick taught to her by Dressman. Sullivan remained interested in Susie’s well being despite her placement at the Cincinnati Zoo. On May 11, 1934, Sullivan wrote a letter to the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden's board of directors from Susie's point of view, which stated, "It is wrong and misleading...to use my pretty picture...to sell tickets. Why not say, 'Come out and see me in a glass bandbox where the children can see me suffering from the heat while some argue?' If I don't have something damn soon, I will ask Papa Sullivan to send me to St. Louis, and I know he will do it." Three days later, the board approved new quarters for Susie at a cost of $1,900, according to Joy W. Kraft’s “The Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden.” Susie died in on October 29, 1947, after suffering a stroke. Susie's skelton was preserved and housed at the University of Cincinnati, but was destroyed during a fire in 1974. Dr. Pearl Missoura (Zeek) Minning, who performed Susie's autopsy, kept many of her organs. Where these organs are now is unknown. While postcards of Susie are not uncommon, as expected given her celebrity, the pamphlet is nearly impossible to find: Cincinnati and Hamilton County Public Library notes a [ca. 1945] edition of 10 pages; the Cincinnati History Museum and Archives notes a [1937] edition, also evidently of 10 pages. |
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