Alongside contributor and this evenings moderator elisa barbararemain digital for the time being we are so excited to continue to work bringing authors and their writing to our community during this difficult time. Especially now thanks to the support of authors in our beloved community we are able to make a fence like this happen, thank you so much for continuing to show up. For tonights event we will conclude with some questions, if you would like to ask the speaker something, locate the q a button wherever it may be on your zoom display. We will get through as many as time will allow. If you go to the chat section of this presentation i will post a link to our website where you can purchase your copy. If you already have a copy of to make their own way in the world or would like to contribute to the series at our store in a different way i will be posting in the chat a link to the websites donation button. Its greatly appreciate any and all support you are able to extend at this time. Lastly, as you may know if you participated in large virtual gatherings lately, technical issues might come up, we do apologize in advance for that. Any technical glitches occur we will do our best to resolve them as quickly as possible. Now it is my absolute pleasure to introduce tonight speakers deborah williss renowned photographer curator and University Professor in chair of department of otography and imaging at the tisch school of the arts at new york university. The author of several oks including reflections and blk history of black photographers 1840 to th present, and envisioning emancipation black americans at the end of slave. John stauffer is the case professor of english and african and africanameric studies at Harvard University. He is the author or editor of 20 books and over 100 articles including giants parallel life of Frederick Douglass and abraham lincoln, national stseller and awardwinning history black hearts of men radical abolitionist in the transfortion of race. Sah lewis is associate professor of Harvard University in the departme of history of art and architecture in the department of afcan and africanamerican studies. E founder of division and Justice Project and e author of several books including a [inaudibleand a book on race, photography, all from Harvard University press. Elisa is awardwinning ab shes codirector of the future film in and out of africa and cowriter of the book crosscultural filmmaking a handbook for making documentaries a [inaudible] tonight they will be discussing their book to make their own way in the world a powerful resurrection abaged men and women of african descent is appearances were captured and 15 of the cruelest images taken in american history. In her brilliant write up of this book, aasks the essential question is there a correct way to regard these images throughout this book, scholars whose work spanned countless backgrounds, histories and sociologys convenience to offer new previously unimaginable ways of viewing these images seeing them as theyve never been seen before and unearthing the long discarded truths of the stolen life. We are so deeply honored to be hosting this event tonight, without further ado, i will turn things over to our esteemed panelists. Hello, everybody. Thank you benjamin and thank you to the Harvard Bookstore for hosting us this year. We are delighted to be here to be able to sha this very complicated book with you. In order tmake this conversation make a little bit more sense imoing to go through a little bit of wha the book is about and what the guerra type look like so you ha an idea of what we are talking about. Im going to start by sharing my screen. Rather than all humans descending from one origin, people from different races are different origins. Scientific racism but was discounted even in the time by some of the colleagues. The reasons that will be discussed today are publicly presented only once. New discovery at the museum in 1976. Since their rediscovery, intense discussion and controversy makes this important observation. As we have seen in so many cases around the globe, coming into possession of exploited images. In this case, the underlying original is men and women were not afforded the right to give or withhold their consent to be photographed. Taking those images at the time. Profoundly unethical. I think that that was and remains the heart of the issue. With this shared belief, each author exposed a different aspect of the image and the title forward. Who are these people. Earlier research by eleanor and molly rogers, conducted a deep dive into his archive into the new information about these individuals. Born in africa and on a plantation of colonel hampton the second to construct the mansion. There was evidence in the 1870 census that after emancipation, he lived alone in richland county. Jim, and you can see it on the upper lefthand corner, when they were discovered, there were labels that described people within them. We moved the names of the people that were photographed. The South Carolina coast or islands, fw greene who was likely a mechanical engineer. Working on building projects in columbia. A case that contained photographs and that was the third one down on the right. Described as and the ruler who was in richland county. Also a farmer. Individuals in these images were enslaved by Benjamin Franklin taylor and it is likely they toiled a huge part of the time in the cotton fields of the plantation. Working as a driver or kind of an overseer and his daughter. From congo and his daughter who may have worked as a blacksmith. The partner was a woman and they had five children. This book explores the life of these individuals as well as the impact and continue to have on the ongoing american discussion of race and racial justice. I would like to begin this conversation by looking at it both historically and upon the individual contributors to the book. I would like to start with deb. Doctor deb. When you first saw this stereotype, when they were in nl reaction to the discovery of these images and how does that influence your subsequent work in the field of photography . Think hell. It is good to be here with sarah and john and all of you 100 people out there in the audience there around the world. A lot was going on and 76 based on that. Focusing on africanamerican history. Writing a number of people saving families. Having the opportunity to discover an article in the newspaper, i had just graduated from, i was from undergraduate school and i was fascinated with the story. I was researching the history of black people that id photographed during that time period. It was really embracing. It gave me a sense of hope to show how photography shaped history at that time. I was curious about the discovery. This photograph in my minds eye, you know, the profile image, they did not have the exposed images, but i remember seeing an overlap of images in the paper. That is what i recall. Continuing my research and i wanted to know more about the images. They stayed with me until later on and later of course, Brian Wallace and there were other teasers that were written during that time, but it was early on in the 70s when i first encountered the images. Wonderful appeared john, elinor made the link in her research as a staff member. Other questions about the relationship with the images remains. You write in your essay not suitable appeared about why she may have put these images away and why they remained hidden for all those years. A major question that is one of the reasons that led me to it the nations leading scientist. He creates this school of science. One colleague called him a shameless self promoter. He liked to promote himself and his evidence. After commissioning the stereotypes and bringing them back to cambridge, he held a Scientific Club meeting where he showed them to fellow scientists and intellectuals. Journalists were brought in. It was covered by the press and the journalist said that they were powerful evidence and yet after, the only public socalled Public Meeting in which he shows the stereotypes outside this very private sphere. As you point out, they disappear until 1976. So, a huge self promoter. He was in the news every week. He was constantly showing images of fish and other animals. He was seen, to this day, as inventing or discovering more species of fish and other animals. An extreme sport or. The smallest differences he would announce them a new species. He felt that they provided proof which is a profoundly racist view. It was interpreted in two ways. People had their separate species or they were separate origins which, in fact they tried to argue against the vines of religious people that it did not contradict the bible. In the bible, the genesis that we have is only the genesis of whites. It cannot include everyone. The genesis for africans, chinese and all these different races. Essentially, based on a lot of research and collaboration of colleagues, suggesting two main reasons why he tabled or did not want those circulating. Guffey has very Close Friends. A close friend of Charles Sumner who is really a major champion of civil rights. Grew up in a black neighborhood. Close to emerson who by 1850 was an abolitionist. Posted dinners, hosted dinners where they invited africanamericans to their home. Even more of an abolitionist. A fellow scientist antislavery. Also with a lot of leading proslavery southerners hill loved this. Right after he had this Scientific Club meeting, he was invited to receive a professorship at South Carolina. The university of charleston and South Carolina, and beginning in 1851, and until the civil war, every winter, he spent a few months living in South Carolina with these wealthy proslavery slaveowning elites in South Carolina. That relationship with southern leaders and northern antislavery leaders was important. He would lose one group of those friendships. 1850, the same year, a revolutionary period. Nine Southern States convened at a succession convention. They decided not to, but they came close in 1850. It was also a period in which this boston and massachusetts were deeply divided over slavery. Taking a position on antislavery, a time that you could not say antislavery or proslavery is irrelevant to me. You have to take a position. Revolutionary fervor. Not that different, and my view, from today and when you have this extraordinary rise of protest movement, black lives matter, very successful and inspiring these daily or weekly protests. One reason is that he shows his reputation, his public status as a scholar, as a person who is always in the news north and south over providing or circulating disseminating evidence that he feels. The other reason that i feels he tabled this is a profound difference between how northerners and southerners viewed, especially photographs of africanamericans who were nude. As you pointed out, most of these photographs are nude. An anatomical post. He posed them in the same way that he posed fish and other animals from a scientific perspective. They are nude. At that time, for regardless of what your racial ethnicity was, a new photograph was unacceptable for circulation. In the south, it was actually quite common for them to be stripped nude at auctions or to be paraded at auction because they were seen as property. To disseminate these as evidence , a huge amount of criticism. The offset is he does it for his personal reputation, for his emphasis on his own fame. Realizing that making public the evidence of this Scientific Club meeting is going to damage his reputation. The very fact that he could remain friends, two of these pseudoscientists in the south became leaders of the confederacy during the civil war. He is also friends with sumner who has been leading the politician during the war. Very Close Friends with lincoln and advising lincoln and every single way. Everyone that knew him, even his Close Friends realized he was the shameless self promoter. He made an effort to be in the news every day. He was one of the nations leading public figures. He wanted to be known throughout the nation rather than in just one area, one community. Two of the subjects of the seven subjects are completely nude. Five of them are not. Now i want to talk to sarah. Very important part of sarahs work. One of the most disturbing aspects is the enforced or forced disrobing of the people in the photograph. In your essay, insistent reveal, you mentioned from the chilling gesture of unjust in the composition. Can you expand on this in any way that you wish . I was thinking in the context, throughout the history of what has been art. Thank you, lee south. I just want to express my gratitude. Really such an honor to be part of this profound project in which we can honor the lives of those that have had their agency stripped from them. Justice to the legacy. The article, the chapter that i have in this book speaks to what is an unusual feature of any portrait. It is really what i elects these objects. These subjects apart from the full frontal nudes that you described are in a state of half dress. Their clothes had been forcibly stripped down. What you see in the most chilling fashion is that their clothing is bunched around their waist. It really substantiates the object of double portrait. It gives us an extent of the violence of scientific racism. The way in which there was a forcible move to deprive as greg describes. As captive. You said of clothing. Doing something very specific in the history of representation. In the 19th century, you start to see that state of half dress as two things. First, moving an object from work that is more situated in the history of art to ones that moves into history of natural science. That move from art and science is in these objects through that template of forcible undress. Another reason for what john here is describing. That template became abolitionists context to actually expose slavery. You have private gordon. No, looking at his scorched back as exposed. To both shame white southerners, men who asked her if she was in fact a woman. Here she is inhabiting a template. That position, the argument in the book is to consider how that template actually lives on in the 20th century as well. It is an extraordinary example of the weaponization through compositional template. To deming great and then honor it as well. It was such a complicated question here do you know, thank you. I think that it is really important to see, you know, for a young student straight out of undergraduate without the reference of this history, it is amazing now to reimagine, as difficult as it is today, in the 70s i saw a family. I saw bodies that were enslaved and i actually sell them as the evidence of labor. Also to see them was a way to connect. Different types of debate about what images to preserve of black families as well as the experiences of people that were enslaved. Its interesting to listen to that today all that complicated ways that we have been able to identify ways to see these images and how complex this experience has been. As sarah mentions, the partially undressed body. The fact is that the colorful skirt that we see at the bottom of some of the images and how just imagining the violence of that stripping and what that means. Thinking through how we are in lineage with these objects. I think that it may answer one of your questions. One of these reasons is it is so gripping as a scholar is they do will position us as extensions of the history there. I first learned about them when i walked into the Harvard Art Museum as a student. I learned that it constitute the foundation of that. What the Cambridge City has stated. We have decades later this on the walls to give us a sense of how it is that we can see these as part of the human family. That is such an important point. I am glad that you got up, carrie. I think that the 1995, 96 work that she did, i saw what happened and i cried in which she took photographs of randy, jack and and inscribed words upon them. Not in a negative way. She appropriated these images and made them her own and then said something new about them. I wonder if sarah or john, if either of you want to say anything about her early work. That particular piece. I think that it is very important to acknowledge that carrie is an artist interested in not necessarily, she wanted to represent a different story about looking at the experience of why people have been photographed and how do we address this appearance of photography. At the same time, visual evidence of existing as a type. Then, also, having this scientific story woven in through this narrative that was part of her culture at the time, scientific culture at the time, also, today, as carrie experienced it, make them alive with the red dye that is in the image. Also, emboldened through glass, the sense of a tombstone. He became a scientific subject, you know, the way that those pieces are etched on there, kind of on me in terms of that way of reading and based on the size. This allows me the opportunity to try to share my screen again without using all the garbage on my screen. Showing you for images that are part of a 30 plus essay about africanamerican photo types. You will do that now. She produced specifically for this book and asked her to speak a little bit about it and deb as well. Debs contribution to the book is an interview with carrie. So that we all know what you are talking about while we are doing that how is that . Great. It was interesting because sarah and i both included these in our essays, but in different ways. So, deb, you pointed out that carrie was using yes. A photograph of a subject in terms of that whole aspect. She is actually taking text from different narratives that she has read through the archives. She really recognizes that people were debating about the existing of black bodies during that time. She is creating these stories and that narrative. And then the circle that she uses as a metaphor, as a focus. When we go through the, microscope, she is looking and that way and creating this kind of narrative. I dont know if john or sarah want to follow up on that. That is very good. I love the metaphor of the microscope. She is exposing the attempt to dehumanize humans by treating them in these anatomical unscientific ways. In one sense, the coverage of this club meeting reflects it in a sense of what you have said and one of the line that they said it is these images are not suitable for public notice. They should not be just broadcast without context to the world. These are images that are very disturbing. But i love that analysis, deb. Of course we deal. I think it is an observation that one of my students made. The black mat and the black frame, when you see this work directly after looking at the actual types, it starts to become a response to that case itself. Which, you know, those of us who have seen it knows that it is a thick object. These would have been pocket held objects in the 19th century. Imagine Walking Around with one of these in your pocket. Thinking of it to that degree. He saw the decision to create these rounded black frames as a response to those objects itself even as it amounts to the framing. An important judicial layer to the intervention here. Yes. I would add that the red color is meant to refer possibly to the red velvet that is in the case of the imprint on them. Carrie puts her imprint on these red objects. I see it as blood. I do too. That is why i love the metaphor of the microscope. At that time, it was a very private viewing experience. Put her eye into the microscope and you saw the object that you are looking at. The light within the microscope was different than the Natural Light and the red that i very much see as the blood. Another way is to think about her choice of the word. Sticking with the red, i just now want to mention that the background behind deb is the cover of the book which is a work by carrie that has been colorized by her and then splattered with dark marks. That is from, i believe, and 1862 image of enslaved people working in the fields. It was a theme that she is still interested in. If we move on to the work that carrie did for the book, i think we have a few words to say about this before we have to get to questions. Carrie is some 30 something pages long. Did you want to talk about it . I certainly can. So much to say. Over the past four years, put together the work, the october profile. It has allowed me to think about her body of work. Ultimately, for the sake of time i will compress what i have to say to this. Ultimately, i think the work speaks to not the marketplace, ultimately, but the drama of history. That audience. Ultimately, i think catherine is right when she describes as historys ghost. I think that is a way to see how her muse, using it as she does a louisiana project as a way to allow us to see the present, the past, potentially, the future, a new. Largely her project to reframe our mission of what is possible. Often times of the past. Probably one of the most vivid and chilling examples of that practice. In the end, i think that they are really defined. At times, doing this through those that have been forgotten, on named. She does this by marshaling the power. So beautifully written about the power of beauty. Considering this power over time it is really crucial. Her work as part of this. Deb, so, i was thinking of you encountering at all of these various moments in recent history, 1976, 1976 and 1996 was carries first work. From here i saw what happened and then i cried. You really delving deeply into the essay. Both yours and carries new encounter with these types. What do you think that this essay says and 2020 now of, what does it say that is new that we need to Pay Attention to . I think that what is happening now, when we think about public debate, from the 19th century, we are having public debates now about monuments, about the importance of the archives or the absence of archives. What we are experiencing now is about looking at the record and seeing the multiple flurries that have been neglected in some way, but also, that have been resurfaced. In a sense, paying homage to this difficult narrative. From the female body, to the experience addressed, to the aspect object defying the body when we think about the experience of women who were enslaved and dressed their children so weird. There been multiple stories that have not been discussed. John talks about images that could not be shown in the north or the south based on christian values. We also know that some of these images circulated in private bathrooms because of pornography. Some of these images are pornographic in terms of the way, the exposure of the male genitals and that experience. Overlapping ways of reading. Today, we are still grappling with this history of the body in many ways. Also, how the archive is actually opening up a way to tell a different story. Not just one story, multiple history, and at different times. I think that that is important to experience. Thank you. We do have a couple of questions. I would like to give the audience a chance to weigh in. This actually, i will start with john because john was there from the very beginning of this project. How didhe project began . Hodo scholars and different backgrounds converge o set of photographs . Doing a radcliffe institu workshop, essentially, a form in which they allowed us to bring together scholars from all or to discu these types from multiple perspectives. Lisa, you were interested. There was se good scholarship. Mostly, from our historians. A lot of questions outside of art hisry. How we understand a interpret the past has absolutely crucial endpoints on how we understand the present and tnk about the future. I tell m students all the time, i quote 1984 nel in whi the party says, who controls the path controls the future, controls the future, control the prent. This is a way of trying to obtain a broadnderstanding. We had two seminars. We kind of launched and spearheaded th. That really led to the book because of the enthusiasm by scholars from different fields. In some cases, some that have not had enough exposure or experience or background in photography, butnderstood the crucial implication of trying to do some sort of justice to the pastnd connecting it to the present. Yes. I will give john more credit, but the proje would not have gotten off the ground without john. He and i invited 1520 scholars to an exploratory seminar in 2012 where we all spent a weekend togethernd talked about that. What do we do about them. If you could write about them, what do they tell us. Everyone started by reang molly rogers wonderful book. Molly had done an incredible research. We were all trying to figure out, how do we build on this. By 2015, sarah had come to harvard and was invited into the group. Some people had dropped out. Some people had started wting their articles. We had an archivist, we had people from english literature, history, photography, art history, a whole mixture of pele. And then we had a question he fr someone about why at t inn, do you include the voices of students and young researchers in the volume alongside the essays of established schors and professors . I look at sething and then i want to ask sarah something. Having been there, seeing young people, and through crses taught by sarah and robin hill was also one of the contributors to the book, it is a very hard experience. I watched the students go through a kind of transition. And, sarah, i know, can speak mo to that. Robin had a class, she had about 10 students and she decided to ask them if they wanted to give a written response. Their responses were so honest and free about their feelings. We spent years honing our articles. Put them in a special place where we can actuay try to cope wh the emotional impact. I was personally looking at these images and i tried to subdue that to the best of my ability. These students did not and they were complety honest. What has it been like teaching with these images . It mt be really hard. Thanking the students that i know are in the audience. Precisely what you are speaking to, lease out. I want to thank the students for their trust in me as a professor and introducing these objects to them. Every year and now i have taken approximately 250 students through. Every year whether i will introduce these objects to t students. I really cannot speak here to the degree to prevent students for this experienc whether i have the emotional fortitude to witness that, every sine person that semester. What isaking place for the students is not just an intellectual shift. They areeaving often times with their principal. They are redefined. I really respect the pvacy. I would never reveal the qution that they ask. It really hovers around justice. How can they as students ands as a society betterreates a commity in which this would never take place in a contemporary kind of analo. So, to answer your question, certainly it is profound. It is an extraordinary privilege to be able to consider through that experience how can we honor their lives in thatoment. How it is that we speak about the objects and how it is that i teach the objects. Even though maybe one day that wetart together, that day last for the entire semester and beyond. A moment that the course is oftenuilding on. I often say they really cannot begin until they really see those objects. Even when i show them briefly on the screen the jgs, it simply does not compare. Of course, their peers, oen times, there is a kind of silence that just speaks. You can see the questions, the disbelief on the part o the students looking at these objects. And knowing that students 100 years priorid as well. They a in lineage and now have responsibility to think through how theyill view what many of us do not have the opportunity to. Which is have your lives shifted. Because of what you have sn. The students, that was a piece in the eay, it just speaks so powerfully to the transformation that ive witnessed time and time again. Have been told a couple of times by students who question why we show these images. I believehat we should. I wonder if any of you wanto speak about why i i important evenf it can be traumatic. We only have two minutes. We only have two minutes left. It is a long sto. I also taught the book, 8595 students in the class. Most of the students had not experienced these images. They said that they never even had a class on slavery. These ar first and Second Year College students. They did not know the history. They cou not even imagine the history. They said some people were fro europe and they didot have this type of racism in europe. One of the students wrote a paper and realized where she was born. It just opened up a whole new history for them. A whole new understandi of humanity for them and understanding how to use the archives to move forward. I thin that it is really important, as a research tool, look at photographs, but it is also important for students to understand the history. They cannot talk about it if they do not know that it happen. They cannot emphasize if they do not know what happened and that is what is important about it. I want to add one thing briefly. Do think that it is impossible to grasp the nature of how the slavery structured the regard and citizenship in the country and democracy without understanding these oects. I doot think that theres anything that can replace that. I do thihat it is important to teach these especially today. The dly reminders. Not laws, but by culture. We are livingn this moment with a failure to really see o anothe these objects i think speak to the origins of this long journey that we are all part of. I would just like to add briefly that those are all wonderful comments. White men, they gained control of the humanities for most of the 20th century. Slavery s completely sanitized for most of the 20th century if you read a history, it was by a white man typically in t slavery was seen as benevolent. Images and the voices of enslaved people of african amerans where essentially excluded. It was true throughout the humanity and their private letters, essentially, there was a disproportionate number of Leaders Within the academy who themselves were southernersnd it was a way to try to redeem the southfter the civil war. They were open and explicit about that in their corrpondence. All the more rean to introduce students, parents and grandparents that were not able to be exposed to it. To confront the past in auch more authentic and realisticnd accurate way and to contextualize their interpretations. That can be very emotionally disturbing. It was so wonderful to spend the time with you all. I will jus spin off of what john just said. Actually, that is kind of what this book is tryingo deal. You take it home, you look at it and you have to confront the images. You can do it in your own time, but they are there for you to reckon with and i think that that is exceedingly important. Also think that we need to remind that the images by evelyn and her chapter, the family images of free blacks at the same time a black photraphers that it is important to acknowledge her essay as central as well. That is true. There ar a number of others that touch on important subjects that we did not get to. Evelyn, through images right back to slavery, including a photograph. That is paired with the tragic story. That is paired with an article and essa by mathew who talked about enslaved people own uses of photography. Very new research and something, you know, john worked with at one point. A kind of research that none of us really knew anything abo. That is why our students a important. Absolutely. What those two articles do, the also talk about the empowment of photography. There are counterpoints to the kind of exploitation that. It is about the empowerme of photography. We have not spoken about the context. [inaudle] we have pointed out the language, black abolitionists, they have led the way and using photographerhotography as a tool. Africanamericans in the north and black abolitionists, more than other groups. Then we found out that douglas was the most photographed american in the 19th century. I still think that that is significt. This former slave more photograph than lincoln, grant. David argues that more peopl came to hear douglas speak during the golden age then any other figure white or black. Douglas was tru one of the, literally, two or three most significant figures during the unit states during his lifetime. For a good part of the 20th century, that history was a race and it w done politically by whites. Okay. [laughter] pulling our chairs out from under us. [laughter] i sense that there is a better way to end this than to talk about fredericks douglas and the things that he has offered us. And, here we go. Thank you all. This was kind of a reunion. A collaboration. Thank you. Zoom can be very alienated. This is a real treat for me. Always a pleasure. Thank you. This has been a truly amazing events. I am so honored. I am so glad that the audience was able to witness this as well i just want to take a moment to thank our speakers again. Showing up for our incredible staff here. We sincerely appreciate your support. There is a link below. Thank you for your time and support and for spending part of your friday evening with us. Have a great evening, everyone and stay well. In a Virtual Event hosted by Harvard Bookstore. Describing the efforts by black women to gain the right to vote. Heres a portion of the program. I really began to reflect on what i was finding. I realized that first it was a core principle that we had really arrived at 200 years. It is carried forward really entail our own time. This was the idea that american politics should have no place for racism and sexism. When i recognized how long he had been championing that field, i realized how long they had been alone in sort of carrying that forward and studying that idea in front of us. I realized that they were indeed and intellectual showing this country to its very best ideals. You can find the rest of this program on our website. Booktv. Org. Search for martha jones or the title of her book vanguard. Book tv in prime time starts now. Georgetown University International Affairs Professor charles looks back at American Foreign policy and isolationism. Then it is a seventh annual prize given by the literary publication turkish reviews. 9 00 p. M. Eastern on our program afterwards, deborah stone argues that numbers are objective and followed by Adam Higginbotham on the 1986 Nuclear Disaster in ukraine. Coming up at 11 00 p. M. , talking about nonviolence and its power to affect political and social change. Consult your Program Guide for more information or visit booktv. Org. Now look at american isolationism. The school of Foreign Service and Government Department at Georgetown University and senior fellow of the council on foreign relation. 20142017, serving in the Obama Administration as special assistance on the National Security council. He also served during the clinton administration. A visiting scholar including harvard, columbia and the International Institute for
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