To Make Their Own Way in the World: The Enduring Legacy of the Zealy Daguerreotypes

Abstract

Despite the inexplicable title, To Make Their Own Way in the World is a weighty examination of fifteen extraordinary daguerreotypes of men and women of African descent who were enslaved in South Carolina. Joseph T. Zealy photographed Alfred, Delia, Drana, Fassena, Jack, Jem, and Renty, stripped naked, for the Harvard College professor Louis Agassiz in 1850, to support Agassiz's racist theory of polygenesis. Since their rediscovery in 1976, the haunting images have disturbed and challenged viewers worldwide. This multidisciplinary compilation of trailblazing essays frames the daguerreotypes as works of urgent engagement. The beautifully designed volume features color reproductions—open cases with handwritten labels pinned to red velvet pads facing close-ups of the indelible daguerreotypes of startling clarity in brass mats. In part 1, “Photographic Subjects,” Molly Rogers explains debates about original diversity versus original unity in the “American school of ethnology.” Gregg Hecimovich adroitly fleshes out the life and times of the seven sitters. Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham poignantly traces her family photographs from slavery to now. Matthew Fox-Amato brilliantly describes how slaves in the antebellum South used photography to decommodify themselves. In part 2, “Photographic Practice,” John Wood outlines the art, science, and sensuality of daguerreotypy. Tanya Sheehan contends that Zealy's consistent photographic treatment of sitters enabled comparisons between light skin versus dark skin and clothed versus unclothed bodies, but failed to communicate essential difference. Christoph Irmscher concludes that Agassiz's 1868 commission of more than one hundred amateurish photographs of Blacks and Indians in Brazil did not reveal the evils of racial mixing.