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No matter where you go in New York, you’re destined to find an animal-lover walking a dog, a cat wandering around or a rabbit hopping back to its owner. With an estimated 2 million pets living throughout the city, it’s no surprise that pets are a quintessential part of living in this dense, sprawling metropolis. But a new exhibit at the New-York Historical Society showcases the ways the role of our furry friends has changed since the 1700s, becoming ingrained in the city’s evolution from the wilderness to an urban environment.
The exhibit, titled “Pets and the City,” gathers together countless works of art, documents and memorabilia in order to paint a complete picture of New York’s animal history through the years. Brought together by Roberta J.M. Olson, the museum’s curator of drawings emerita, this show brings you to early portraits of our favorite pets and their owners and images that capture the expanding definition of household animals and pop culture’s fascination with our four-legged friends.
We got a sneak preview of the exhibition before it opens on October 25!
As you enter, the exhibit asks you to reflect on “What is a Pet?,” with wonderful illustrations from Julia Rothman acting as a guide. This open-ended question – with “wingman” and “songbird” as some suggested answers – resonates as you move through the exhibit’s proto-pet section, which showcases how different cultures treated animals in early America.
To both Native Americans and settlers, hunting played an essential role in sustenance and survival. But for many Indigenous cultures, animals and humans were kindred spirits with a two-way relationship between them. That respect for animals is apparent in several documents and drawings, such as a deed of property from 1729 which makes known how Native Americans drew their clan animals in addition to signing their names. A nearby drawing from David Cusick captures an Indigenous hunter in action.
As animals began to move into the household, they also continued to move into the frame. It’s here where portraits of posh settlers include animals, often in order to emphasize the values the owners wanted to see in their children. In these paintings of Dutch and English settlers, domesticated deer were included as a symbol of peace and harmony, while leashed squirrels can be seen “as a symbol of resourcefulness,” according to Olson.
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Over the course of three years, Olson casted a wide net to tell this story, scouring archives and finding these artifacts, many of which had been included in exhibits before. One critical inclusion was the role pets play in pop culture, which through a looped television showcases unforgettable scenes from As Good as It Gets, Annie, Sesame Street and Seinfeld. Between their “cuteness factor” and their loyalty, the exhibit says that pets are “advertising gold and catnip for social media posts.”
Olson’s arrangement goes on to discuss how pets have joined us at work, from the nearly 120,000 horses present in Manhattan and Brooklyn often used as transportation to seeing-eye and rescue dogs. The exhibit is also certain to address the omnipresence of pests, from pigs trotting across the 1820 roads to a post-Covid surge in rats in New York. Nearby, small pieces of dog and cat show history are included. Be sure to spot the lovable photos of dogs dressed for dinner or as a Broadway usher. For Olson, that combination of the historical and the adorable is what makes “Pets and the City” such a delight to put on.
“Every single one of these animals, these pets, is a VIP: a very important pet,” said Olson. “They have much to teach us about sustainability, about being comfortable in our own skin and about loyalty. It’s together with them that we have to make a better world and a better planet.”
“Pets and the City” opens on October 25 and will be on display New-York Historical Society through April 25, 2025