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Harvard to Transfer 175-Year-Old Daguerreotypes of Enslaved Individuals to Charleston Museum

The settlement ends a years-long legal battle by entrusting the photographs to a museum that will work closely with Tamara Lanier.

Image
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
A man uses his phone to take video of Tamara Lanier speak 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

  • On May 28, 2025, Harvard agreed to relinquish 175-year-old daguerreotypes of Renty Taylor, his daughter Delia and five other enslaved individuals to the International African American MuseumCharleston.
  • The images were commissioned in 1850 by Harvard professor Louis Agassiz to support white supremacist theories and required the subjects to pose shirtless or partially nude.
  • Tamara Lanier sued Harvard in 2019 for wrongful seizure and emotional distress, and the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court revived her case in 2022, finding the university complicit in the coercion.
  • The settlement includes an undisclosed financial sum but does not include a formal apology or acknowledgment from Harvard of its historical role in slavery or of Lanier’s ancestral connection.
  • The International African American Museum has pledged to collaborate with Lanier on curating and interpreting the photographs to ensure her family’s story is fully represented.