A Harvard Scientist Commissioned Photos of Slaves in 1850. A Lawsuit Says the University Is Still Profiting From Them.

In 1850, a Harvard University scientist ordered an enslaved father and daughter to pose for photographs as part of a quest to “prove” his racist biological theories. On Wednesday, a woman who says she’s a direct descendent of the enslaved man sued the university for ownership of the photos.

The lawsuit, filed on behalf of Tamara Lanier, says the issue at hand is not just photography rights. Rather, the case is about “the extent to which history is told and appropriated by the powerful — and denied to the powerless,” according to the lawsuit, filed in a Massachusetts civil court.

The action poses a moral question for Harvard and universities like it: Are they honestly grappling with a troubling legacy, or continuing to benefit from it?

Harvard’s president and fellows, the Board of Overseers, the university itself, and its Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology are named as defendants. Lanier is seeking ownership of the images, plus damages and “legal and equitable redress.”

Jonathan Swain, a university spokesman, said on Wednesday that Harvard, having not yet been served with the lawsuit, was in no position to comment.

The daguerreotype images are of two people, identified only as Renty and his daughter, Delia, who were enslaved in South Carolina. The shirtless photos were taken in 1850 at the direction of the Harvard biologist Louis Agassiz. Forgotten for decades, they were rediscovered in 1976 in the attic of the Peabody museum and established as the earliest known photographs of American slaves.

Reckoning With Slavery

In recent years, scholarship on the history of slavery has leapt beyond academe to force a societal reckoning. This occasional series explores fresh questions scholars are asking as America confronts its history of human bondage.

• A New Path to Atonement
• A ‘Long Overdue Conversation’: Do Universities That Benefited From Slavery Owe a Debt to Black Colleges?
• The Scholars Behind the Quest for Reparations

In her lawsuit, Lanier, who lives in Norwich, Conn., says she had heard stories about her great-great-great grandfather, Renty Taylor, or Papa Renty, who taught himself to read and conducted secret Bible readings and studies.

After her mother died, Lanier says, she scoured libraries in South Carolina for information about the plantation on which Renty and Delia were enslaved, and conducted research on genealogy websites.

She eventually learned of the photographs at Harvard and in 2011 wrote to Drew Gilpin Faust, president at the time, the lawsuit says. Lanier asked to learn more about the images and for someone to review her documents to reaffirm that Renty and Delia are her ancestors.

Ever since, she had been met with “nothing but resistance” from the university, she said on Wednesday during a news conference.

“They have never sat down with me personally and looked at my information to confirm that I’m a lineal descendent of Renty,” she said.

Lanier, who is represented by lawyers from four law firms, claims that she, not Harvard, is the rightful owner of the photos. In the 1800s, Harvard supported Agassiz, a Swiss scientist, in his mission to demonstrate that black people were inherently inferior, and that their subjugation and exploitation was justified, the lawsuit says. By denying Lanier the photos now, the lawsuit argues, the university is “perpetuating the systematic subversion of black property rights.”

“Harvard has never reckoned with that grotesque chapter in its history,” the lawsuit says, “let alone atoned for it.”

‘Directly Complicit’

A researcher discovered the photographs in 1976 in a wooden cabinet in a corner of the Peabody’s attic. They had been commissioned by Agassiz to “prove” the superiority of the white race, according to a paper published in 1995 by the University of Chicago Press on behalf of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

Upon discovering the photos, Harvard had a chance to reckon with its past, the lawsuit says. But instead, “Harvard saw an opportunity for Harvard.”

Lanier’s lawyers argue that the university has made no effort to locate next of kin for Renty and Delia, instead claiming the photographs as property in its exclusive control, and that it continues to charge a “hefty fee” to anyone who wishes to reproduce the photos.

Benjamin Crump, a civil-rights lawyer among those representing Lanier, says in a statement that the photographs “make it clear that Harvard benefited from slavery then and continues to benefit now.”

“By my calculation, Renty is 169 years a slave,” he says. “When will Harvard finally set him free?”

The lawsuit also criticized Harvard for profiting from Renty’s image. It is on the cover of the 30th-anniversary edition of the book From Site to Site: Anthropology, Photography and the Power of Imagery, on sale by the museum for $40. Renty’s image is also on the website of an academic conference that Harvard held in 2017 that explored the relationship between slavery and universities. Renty’s image was projected on a screen and included in the conference program, the lawsuit says.

Harvard recently joined the Universities Studying Slavery initiative, an effort to address the legacies of slavery and issues of race and inequality in higher education. In 2016, Harvard convened a faculty committee to advise it on how to pursue scholarship and research about its own history of slavery.

At the time, Faust, who is a scholar of American history, said Harvard was “directly complicit” in America’s slave system. The university continued to be indirectly involved “through extensive financial and other ties to the slave South up to the time of emancipation,” she said.

“This is our history and our legacy,” Faust said at the time, “one we must fully acknowledge and understand in order to truly move beyond the painful injustices at its core.”

Emma Pettit is a staff reporter at The Chronicle. Follow her on Twitter @EmmaJanePettit, or email her at emma.pettit@chronicle.com.