Renty’s daguerreotype surfaced at the Peabody in 1976 after decades hidden

Evidence

“Welcome to Radcliffe, Harvard’s Institute of Advanced Study, for this conference exploring the complicated relationship between institutions of higher learning and the institution of slavery,” she wrote. “The man you see on the program’s front cover, Renty, lived and worked as a slave in South Carolina in 1850, when his photograph was taken for the Harvard professor Louis Agassiz as part of Agassiz’s scientific research. While Agassiz earned acclaim, Renty returned to invisibility. His photograph remained buried in an attic drawer at the Peabody Museum until its rediscovery in 1976.” — Tamara Lanier, From These Roots, 594

Categorization

• XREF: Supports the core of the book: Renty’s image was taken for Agassiz’s polygenist research, exactly the live doctrinal question of who owns an enslaved person’s photograph.