175 Years after Harvard Professor Photographed Slaves to Prove Racist Theory, Connecticut Woman Wins Fight over Powerful Daguerreotypes
CAMBRIDGE, MA–A Connecticut woman today achieved a years-long goal of forcing Harvard University to relinquish images, believed to be the earliest known photographs of enslaved people, commissioned by a Harvard professor to support a theory that Africans and African-Americans were inferior to whites.
Harvard’s Role in the Legacy of Slavery
The linchpin of the resolution of the 2019 lawsuit brought by Tamara Lanier requires Harvard to fully relinquish images of an enslaved man named Renty and his daughter Delia, along with images of five other enslaved individuals. The images are expected to be transferred to South Carolina—the same state where the photographs were taken in 1850—where they will be publicly displayed.
Until now, the 19th-century “daguerreotypes”—the precursor to modern day photographs—have remained in Harvard’s sole possession at the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology. For 15 years, Lanier repeatedly implored Harvard to acknowledge its complicity in slavery, to listen to Lanier’s oral family history and its connection to the daguerreotypes, and to give the images to a more suitable institution. Harvard’s refusals prompted Lanier, Renty’s great-great-great granddaughter, to file her groundbreaking lawsuit in 2019.
“Since Black Americans were first brought to this country in chains, our pain and trauma have been exploited for capitalistic gain,” said Tamara Lanier, the descendant of the enslaved man known as Papa Renty and his daughter, Delia. “As descendants of slaves, familial history and well-documented genealogy are a luxury that many Black Americans do not have. Harvard played a role in the darkest chapter in American history. This is a small step in the right direction towards fully acknowledging that history and working to rectify it.”
Lanier’s lawsuit over the school’s use and possession of the images argued that the institution had improperly profited from images of her ancestors by using them for advertising and commercial purposes. She also sought to hold Harvard accountable for its infliction of emotional distress by ignoring her repeated pleas and publicly casting doubt on her lineage. In 2022, the Massachusetts Supreme Court ruled in Lanier’s favor and reaffirmed the merits of her lawsuit against Harvard. In a historic opinion, the state’s highest court recognized “Harvard’s complicity in the horrific actions surrounding the creation of the daguerreotypes” and affirmed that “Harvard’s present obligations cannot be divorced from its past abuses.”
“This is a day of reckoning 175 years in the making. The survival and perseverance of Renty and Delia in their lifetime won them their freedom after emancipation, so it seems only fitting that Tamara Lanier’s perseverance in telling their full story has now won them their freedom from spiritual enslavement by the institution that has held them for nearly two centuries,” said Josh Koskoff, Partner of Koskoff, Koskoff and Bieder, and Tamara Lanier’s attorney. “This is not just an unlikely personal victory for the Lanier family, it is also a win for the importance of truth and the power of history at a time when both values are under unprecedented assault.”
The images were captured in the winter of 1850 in South Carolina by a Harvard professor, Louis Agassiz, and were intended to support a theory, known as polygenism, that Africans and African-Americans are inferior to whites. Polygenism, widely advocated by the Harvard professor, was used to justify both the ongoing enslavement of black people prior to the Civil War and their segregation afterward. Renty was brought to a photography studio, stripped naked and photographed from every angle; next to him, his daughter Delia was then stripped to the waist and forced to pose for the photographs.
“Papa Renty was taken from his descendants and used to promote a lie – but today, he has finally been returned to the love and care of his family,” said Attorney Ben Crump. “This historic settlement is a step forward in the pursuit of justice and a recognition of the pain caused by the dark history of exploiting enslaved people. I commend Tamara Lanier for her courage and unwavering commitment to her family’s truth–she refused to let history forget who Papa Renty really was.”
For decades after they were taken, the images were then forgotten. In 1976, an employee of Harvard’s Peabody Museum, the late Ellie Reichlin, discovered them in a corner cabinet of the museum’s attic. Harvard University made no effort to locate the subjects’ descendants and instead began to display and license the images for profit, insisting that anyone seeking to view the photographs sign a contract, and anyone wishing to reproduce the images, even for educational purposes, pay a fee to the University.
Over a fifteen year period, Tamara Lanier made repeated efforts to share her family history with Harvard and start a dialogue about how the University planned to use the daguerreotypes. Her outreach included the Peabody Museum, multiple professors, Harvard’s then-president Dr. Drew Faust, and the Harvard Crimson. At every turn, she was ignored, rebuffed and silenced.
Tamara Lanier is represented by Joshua Koskoff, Preston Tisdale, Carey Reilly and Katie Mesner-Hage of Koskoff Koskoff & Bieder; and Benjamin Crump and Nabeha Shaer of Ben Crump Law. Michael Koskoff handled the case prior to his passing in 2019.
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bout Koskoff Koskoff & Bieder PC
Koskoff Koskoff & Bieder, based in Connecticut, is a nationally recognized law firm that, in 2022, achieved landmark legal victories on behalf of nine families of the Sandy Hook School shooting. The firm has also achieved record verdicts for people who suffer serious harm from violation of their civil or constitutional rights, medical malpractice, dangerous products, negligence, corporate or governmental abuse and commercial misconduct.
About Ben Crump Law
Through his work, nationally renowned civil rights and personal injury attorney Ben Crump has spearheaded a legal movement to better protect the rights of marginalized citizens. He has led landscape-changing civil rights cases and represented clients in a wide range of areas, including civil rights, personal injury, labor and employment, class actions, and more. Ben Crump Law is dedicated to holding the powerful accountable. For more information, visit bencrump.com
