No Cartoon Character
World-class institutions require world-class leaders to urge them to their greatness. For Brookfield Zoo, John Tinney McCutcheon was one of its first and foremost.
McCutcheon was the first president of the Chicago Zoological Society, the zoo’s governing body. He was elected to the position soon after the Society was chartered in February 1921. The posting delighted him. “Here seemed a chance to do something for the city which had done so much for me,” he later wrote in his autobiography.
No stranger to Chicago’s elite, McCutcheon made his living not as a politician or a business leader, but as a cartoonist for the Chicago Tribune. “I was thrown into frequent association with Chicago’s most public-spirited citizens, and these relationships, I now realize, have been among the most prized perquisites of my position,” he wrote. Successful, influential, and a world traveler, he owned a Caribbean island and was friendly with President Theodore Roosevelt.
An overseer of broader scope, McCutcheon left daily operations to the zoo’s directors. During the early decades, leaders pulled the zoo through the Great Depression, World War II, and many other events that took financial and other tolls. Each time, McCutcheon provided support through his natural charm, friends in high places, and everyday access to the breakfast tables of most Chicagoans.
Poor health, of which he had suffered for many years, forced McCutcheon to step down in November 1948. He had served as the Society’s president for 27 years. He died eight months later, at age 79.
Clay Judson, McCutcheon’s brother-in-law and successor as president, paid his respects by summing up the cartoonist’s contributions to the zoo: “His keen interest in the zoo at Brookfield, his imagination, his friendships in all parts of the world, and the particular esteem in which he was held in this community, were all vital factors in building the firm foundation on which the affairs of the Society now rest.”