Ruth Harkness and Su Lin: The First Panda to Reach the Western World
Key Fact: In December 1936, a baby giant panda named Su Lin arrived at the Brookfield Zoo in Chicago — the first live panda ever seen in the West. He had been captured in the mountains of Sichuan by Ruth Harkness, an American socialite with no scientific training who had traveled to China to complete her late husband’s expedition. Su Lin’s arrival triggered a global “panda fever” that transformed public perception of the species and launched the modern era of panda fascination.
Key Takeaways
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Ruth Harkness was an unlikely explorer — a New York socialite who completed her deceased husband’s panda expedition.
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Su Lin was the first live panda in the West — his 18 months at the Brookfield Zoo transfixed America.
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The expedition changed the panda’s destiny — transforming it from an obscure animal into a global icon.
In February 1936, William Harkness, an American adventurer, died in Shanghai — alone, far from home, his expedition to capture a live giant panda unfinished. His widow, Ruth, a New York fashion designer who had never camped, never hunted, and never traveled in Asia, decided to finish what he had started.
She sailed to China. She assembled a team of local guides. She trekked into the mountains of Sichuan. And on November 9, 1936, she was handed a baby panda cub — a squirming, black-and-white creature, barely three months old, that her guides had found in a hollow tree. She named him Su Lin, wrapped him in her coat, and fed him from a baby bottle.
The journey back to America was an international sensation. Su Lin traveled by boat, by train, and by car, photographed at every stop. When he arrived at the Brookfield Zoo, an estimated 53,000 visitors came on the first weekend — the largest attendance in the zoo’s history. Su Lin was photographed for Time and Life, written about in every major newspaper, and visited by celebrities and statesmen.
He died 18 months later, of pneumonia. But in his brief life, Su Lin transformed pandas from obscure Asian animals into global icons. The modern panda era — the diplomacy, the conservation, the celebrity — begins with Ruth Harkness and a cub in a hollow tree.
This article draws on Ruth Harkness’s own published accounts, Brookfield Zoo archives, and historical newspaper coverage.
