Harvard funded polygenist research on enslaved people where slavery was already illegal

Evidence

Harvard funded Agassiz and supported his research at a time when slavery was illegal in the Bay State—and Renty’s and Delia’s images were taken without their consent. Bewersdorf uses the Peabody publication To Make Their Own Way in the World: The Enduring Legacy of the Zealy Daguerreotypes to prove that Harvard continues to use their images in the same dehumanizing way. “Renty’s image is published as one among many. Harvard refused to publish his story as known by the plaintiff through historical knowledge of his person handed down from generation to generation. Conversely, Harvard uses Renty’s daguerreotype to fill the book to primarily give editors and scholars a place to publish their work. The photographer Zealy is mentioned more times than the enslaved persons that were violated.” — Tamara Lanier, From These Roots, 1237

Categorization

• ADDENDUM: Complements the complaint-about-immodesty piece: publication of nearly naked enslaved bodies as a dehumanizing archival act mirrors the long history of dress (or undress) as control.