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In 1936, W. Douglas Burden, Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney, and Ilia Tolstoy designed a natural oceanarium that could be used to film marine life, constructed on land of very large steel tanks containing fresh sea water. Glass portholes placed at strategic intervals would afford motion picture studios their first opportunity for documentary photographing of sharks, porpoises, manta rays, sea turtles, and many smaller marine animals. Eventually the founders decided to open the world's first oceanarium as a public venue as well as a studio facility.
On June 23, 1938, Marine Studios opened to the public with 20,000 visitors. Attractions included a female bottlenose dolphin and her calf, and a large manta ray, thirteen feet long and weighing 1,500 pounds. The main concern of Marine Studios during its first years of operation was to find, by trial and error, which of the more interesting and spectacular forms would live in the oceanarium and which would not. Staff had to learn how to properly feed and care for the animals, often with nearly devastating consequences.
Summary:
This collection contains photographs taken by W. F. Gerecke of Marine Studios during its first months of operation. Images include many of the marine animals that lived there, including porpoises, turtles, sharks, manta rays, manatees, penguins, and jewfish. Some of the images depict the facility's construction, visitors watching performances of the porpoises and penguins, and Marine Studio staff feeding the porpoises and cleaning the viewing windows located around the two large aquariums.
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