The Zealy daguerreotypes were both early photographs and first mug shots.

Evidence

It hit me then that these images were both among the first photographs ever taken of enslaved African people as well as the first documented examples of racial profiling. Photography was a new medium in the 1850s, and Agassiz used it to present these Black men and women not for who they were, but for who he wanted them to be. These were also the first mug shots. — Tamara Lanier, From These Roots, 657

Categorization

Category: Factual Claims

• SHARE: Some one passionate about photographic history or racial profiling would prize this framing.

Related

• The 1850 slave daguerreotypes were photography’s first racial-profiling documents (similarity 0.89)
• The daguerreotypes were among the first photos ever taken of enslaved people (similarity 0.86)
• Agassiz commissioned Zealy’s nude photographs of enslaved people for Harvard. (similarity 0.82)
• The 1850 daguerreotypes were produced to prove white racial superiority. (similarity 0.81)
• Agassiz commissioned the photos of enslaved people as evidence of racial inferiority (similarity 0.81)
• Racist daguerreotypes ironically immortalized the enslaved people they demeaned (similarity 0.80)
• Agassiz commissioned slave daguerreotypes in 1850 to prove whites were a separate superior species. (similarity 0.79)
• The 1850 daguerreotypes were the first documented racial profiling. (similarity 0.78)
• Harvard’s book mentions photographer Zealy more than the enslaved subjects (similarity 0.78)