1/6/2023 0 Comments Alfred delia![]() ![]() The issue of ownership of the images gained attention after Tamara Lanier sued Harvard for the daguerreotypes, claiming to be a direct descendant of Renty. However, the unethical display of these images - which were photographed for the purpose of elevating racist ideologies - only bolster the credibility of the pseudo-scientist that commissioned them. The most striking element of the photos are their eyes, which tell a story of sadness and dehumanization under slavery. The photos show strong but worn-down Black people - people who have been beaten, forced to work, and humiliated. Some photos show only the top half of the subjects, while others show them fully nude, standing facing forward and sideways. Each image exhibits their Blackness like specimens, placed squarely in the photo’s frame for maximum observation. The photos included seven subjects: Alfred, Delia, Drana, Fassena, Jack, Jem, and Renty, all from South Carolina plantations, with stoic expressions. According to Harvard’s Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Agassiz commissioned the images to study Black bodies and “used polygenism to argue that Black people were part of an inferior race.” Agassiz’s 19th-century daguerreotypes are some of the earliest images of enslaved men and women. He received a teaching position at Harvard in the 1840s where he spent much of his time creating the University’s Museum of Comparative Zoology. To emancipate itself from this legacy of white supremacy, Harvard must renounce ownership of the images and give them to an African-American history museum.Īgassiz was born in Switzerland and educated in Europe before moving to the United States to work as a natural scientist and zoologist. Harvard’s ownership of these images continues the legacy of white institutional ownership of Black bodies. ![]() ![]() His request for detailed images of Black bodies for study used enslaved men and women, without their permission, to facilitate his claims that he could prove the inferiority of the Black race through scientific study. The images, rediscovered in the 1970s, were daguerreotypes, early types of photographs, commissioned in 1850 by Louis Agassiz. One timely example is Harvard’s fight to retain ownership of the early images of enslaved Black people commissioned by racist Harvard natural scientist Louis Agassiz. Harvard will continue to perpetuate its legacy of racism and white supremacy as long as it retains remnants of slavery and white supremacy. ![]()
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