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16h ago

Harvard to Relinquish 175‐Year‐Old Photographs of Enslaved People to South Carolina Museum

Settling Lanier’s six‐year legal challenge, Harvard will move the daguerreotypes to Charleston’s International African American Museum

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FILE - Tamara Lanier attends a news conference near the Harvard Club, on March 20, 2019, in New York. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II, File)
Tamara Lanier listens as her lawyer speaks to the media about a lawsuit accusing Harvard University of the monetization of photographic images of her great-great-great grandfather, an enslaved African man named Renty, and his daughter Delia, outside of the Harvard Club in New York, U.S., March 20, 2019. REUTERS/Lucas Jackson/File Photo

Overview

  • The settlement resolves Tamara Lanier’s 2019 lawsuit over the “Zealy daguerreotypes,” photographs of her ancestors Renty Taylor and his daughter Delia commissioned in 1850 by biologist Louis Agassiz.
  • In 2022 the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court allowed Lanier’s claims of emotional distress against Harvard to proceed after condemning the university’s role in the images’ creation and display.
  • Under the agreement Harvard will transfer ownership of the two primary portraits along with five other slave images now held at its Peabody Museum.
  • An undisclosed financial component is included in the settlement and the International African American Museum has pledged to collaborate with Lanier on exhibit interpretation.
  • Harvard said it has long sought to place the daguerreotypes in a public institution to increase access and ensure the images are shown with proper historical context.