Black Bodies, White Science: Louis Agassiz's Slave Daguerreotypes

Author(s): Brian Wallis

Reviewed work(s):
Source: American Art, Vol. 9, No. 2 (Summer, 1995), pp. 38-61
Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of the Smithsonian American Art Museum
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3109184 .
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 BlackBodies,White Science
LouisAgassiz'sSlaveDaguerreotypes

BrianWallis Recentdiscussionsof multiculturalism, society-through negotiationsfraught

ethnicity,identity,and racehaveraised with silent conflictsand profound
many new questionsaboutthe natureof implications.For this reason,it is impor-
culturaldifference.Some criticshave tant to historicizenot only the conceptof
derided"politicalcorrectness"and racebut also the institutionsand power-
challengesto Westerncanonsof culture, knowledgeconjunctionsthat have
while othershavestruggledto tracethe fosteredit.
genealogiesof culturaloppressionand to Museumsarecentralto the waysour
challengenormativestructuresof identity cultureis constructed.Despite the
formation.In its methodology,this attentionthey now pay to spectacleand
second groupof criticshas shiftedthe display,museums-like libraries,histori-
analysisawayfrom essentialistor biologi- cal societies,and archives-are principally
cal versionsof raceby tryingto determine concernedwith sortingand classifying
how fluctuantethnic rolesareconstructed knowledge.It is significant,then, that
and articulatedthrougha varietyof overthe pastfew decadesa greatsea-
positions,languages,institutions,and changehas sweptoverall theseinstitu-
apparatuses. When racehas been sub- tions. In the wakeof the photography
jectedto the criticalgazeof theseprac- boom of the 1970s, informationonce
tices, it has inevitablybeen reinscribedas storedin the form of photographsand
a complexand discursivecategorythat photographically illustratedbookshas
cannotbe separatedfrom otherformative beenwrenchedfrom its previousorgani-
componentsof identity. zationaland institutionalcontextsand
In otherwords,thesedebateshave reclassifiedaccordingto its medium.As
madeclearthat "race"is a politicalissue,a criticRosalindKrausshas noted, the
productof subjectivechoicesmade effectof this changehas been "to dis-
aroundissuesof power,a functionless of mantlethe photographicarchive-the set
physicalrepressionthan of constructions of practices,institutions,and relationships
of knowledge.Who determineswhat to which nineteenth-century photography
counts as knowledge?Who representsand belonged-and to reassembleit within
"Renty,Congo. Plantationof B. F. who is represented? Whose voice will be the categoriespreviouslyconstitutedby
Taylor, Esq." Daguerreotypetakenby heard?Whose storieswill be remembered? artand its history."'
J. T. Zealy,Columbia,S.C., March
1850. PeabodyMuseum,Harvard Such questionsgo to the heartof how Thus, in recentmuseumexhibitionsof
University historyis writtenand validatedby daguerreotypes, imagesonce intendedfor

39 American Art
i
personal,scientific,topographic,medical, at once familiarand utterlystrange.If it is
or legalreasonshavebeen reclassified, a shockto see full frontalnudityin early
reunitedunderthe rulingcategoryof the Americanphotography,it is even more
"daguerrean aesthetic."Once-anonymous surprisingto see it without the trappings
cameraoperatorshavebeen givennames of shameor sexualfantasy.Here, the
and accordedthe statusof artists.And seatedwomen calmlyrevealtheirbreasts,
worksthat formerlycirculatedin file and the standingmen arestarknaked.
cabinets,deskdrawers,familyalbums, But theirattitudesaredetached,
and localarchiveshavenow been dis- unemotional,and workmanlike.In what
placedto the autonomous,unifying seemsto be a deliberaterefusalto engage
contextof the artmuseum.If nothing with the cameraor its operator,they stare
else, this processprovesthat theseputa- into the lens, theirfaceslike masks,eyes
tivelyobjectiverecordsareanythingbut, glazed,jawsclenched.Fascinatingand
and that the notion of an autonomous disturbing,thesepicturesraisecompelling
imageis a fiction.Moreover,this process questionsaboutthe constructionof-and
alsosuggeststhat the classificatory systems the socialinvestmentsin-the categories
of nineteenth-century objectivitymay of "race,""science,""photography," and
havea greatdeal to do with the formation "themuseum."
of modernistversionsof knowledge.This The daguerreotypes, whichweretaken
dual shift in seeingsuggeststhat all forAgassizin Columbia,South Carolina,
knowledgeis relative,historicallysituated, in 1850, had two purposes,one nomi-
subjectivelyformedand catalogued,and nallyscientific,the otherfranklypolitical.
bound to intereststhatcolor its meanings. They weredesignedto analyzethe
But what is signaledby this shift in physicaldifferencesbetweenEuropean
meaning?How has this reorientationof whitesandAfricanblacks,but at the same
photographicknowledgeactuallypro- time they weremeantto provethe
ducednew meaningsand new insights? superiorityof the white race.Agassiz
What is the relationshipbetweenchang- hoped to use the photographsas evidence
ing attitudestowardraceand simulta- to provehis theoryof "separatecreation,"
neous transformations in museum the idea that the variousracesof mankind
collectionpractices? werein factseparatespecies.Though
strictlyscientificin purpose,the da-
guerreotypestook on a veryparticular
LouisAgassizand RacialTypologies meaningin the contextof prevailing
political,economic,and aesthetictheories
A particularlyrevelatorycaseis that of the aboutrace.Thus, they help to discredit
so-calledslavedaguerreotypes of Louis the verynotion of objectivityand call into
Agassiz,discovered at Harvard's Peabody questionthe supposedtransparency of the
Museumin 1975 andjustifiably photographicrecord.
celebratedin the exhibition"Nineteenth- The classificatory projectthat led to
Century Photography" organized by the the production of the slave daguerreotypes
Amon Carter Museum in 1992. This was something of a departure for Agassiz,
extraordinaryseries consists of fifteen who, in 1850, was the most famous
highly detailed images on silver scientist in America (fig. 1).3 Before
daguerreotype plates, which show front coming to the United States, he had
and side views of seven southern slaves, shown no interest in the growing Ameri-
men and women, largely naked.2The can debates over slavery or the division of
individuals sit or stand facing the camera mankind into separatespecies. Born in
with a directness and forthrightness that is Switzerland, Agassiz (1807-1873) had

40 Summer 1995
 twenty-two, Agassiz published his first
scientific treatise, a mammoth, ground-
breaking study of the fish of Brazil. This
volume consisted of the meticulous
drawing, classification, and ordering of
more than five hundred species of fish
found principally along the Amazon
River.
Continuing his studies of fish, in 1830
Agassiz published the comprehensive
catalogue Fresh WaterFishesof Central
Europeand, from 1833 to 1844, the

Such questionsgo to the heart

of how history is written and
validated by society-through
negotiationsfraught with
-.
silent conflicts andprofound
;:';?i
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~:- :;
::::;::;-:
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implications.
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_?i:-,l
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??:B
i ---iii:i
:::
:::::::::: iri:--
i:
i::':':l:i-g~~::il;:~
~:~i;-:::':-~i.~
~I-~?;::~~:::-,
?~ca~~~~s
---- '; ; : : --"- :i:l:i:81~1:
:'"-c:I:.:1~9_ i::-:a?
::;::ii~:::-:~:::::
::::~~I`:~~~~
:::BAOe-:li-P

multipart publication Researchon Fossil

:i::-:::::;i_;: i':--'iiiei~~
:;i::::~:
-?:-?";::'::
; :;i::-::::'
-.
:i:,::::-:::: Fish. Previous to this project, only eight
: r :I:i:::::i
ir:gi,~
generic types of fossil fish had been
f:::::
~!:IS~~yg":"~:
~ijl:::::::?~~l identified; Agassiz's five-volume work
catalogued more than 340 new genera.
-r';;
::ii~
;:?:::
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:;::;
:::::::~

..; ..-:::,:I::::
The methodology Agassiz used was
::_:;:;-::
-
; : --- :::i::i::ii--:::::::--:i:
; : :it~
comparative and relational: individual
images or specimens held far less meaning
for him than the cumulative consequence
'Ls of a series properly ordered. Sorting and
ii-i::::
:::::Z:~i
classifying were the bases of Agassiz's
method. As a result, he was one of the
principal collectors and archivists of
Carleton
Watkins,portraitof achieved his first success in Paris as the natural history specimens in the nine-
Professor
LouisAgassiz,ca. 1874. star student of the legendary Baron
Albumensilverprint cabinetcard,
teenth century. In the United States, he
14.9 x 5.1 cm (5 7/ x 4 in.). Georges Cuvier, the leading zoologist of founded prominent natural history
CaliforniaHistoricalSociety,San his day and the founder of the modern museums in Charleston, South Carolina,
Francisco science of comparative anatomy. Cuvier and Cambridge, Massachusetts, and
was so impressed with Agassiz that he established the fundamental rules for
turned over to him his own researchon cataloguing and classifying. Indeed,
fossil fish. In 1829, when he was just the modern museum combines two

41 American Art
2 Detail of LouisAgassiz's nineteenth-century traditions-the Adam and Eve.This theory,called
"Tableau"to accompanyhis
introductionto JosiahNott and organization schemes of Agassiz and the monogenism,assertedoriginfrom a single
showmanship of P. T. Barnum. source.Racialdiscrepancieswereex-
GeorgeGliddon, Typesof
Mankind(Philadelphia:Lippincott, When he emigrated to the United plainedby subscribingto one of two
Grambo& Co., 1854) States in December 1846 to take a post at views:one, the environmentalist, which
Harvard University, Agassiz's first stop saidthat separateracesevolvedinto
was in Philadelphia to see "the American differentbody typesand skin pigmenta-
Golgotha," the famous skull collection of tion becauseof climate,locale,and other
Dr. Samuel Morton. An eminent physi- physicaleffects;and two, miscegenist,
cian and anatomist, Morton had recently which held that separateraceswerethe
published two skull compendia, Crania resultof intermarriage. But it was poly-
Americana (1839) and CraniaAegyptiaca the of
genesis, theory multiple,separate
(1844), works that had profound influ- creationsfor eachraceas distinctspecies,
that becamethe hallmarkof the American
School of Ethnology.Fora brieftime
around1850, the Americantheoryof
Worksthatformerly circulated in polygenesis,with Mortonas its leader,
enjoyedwide credencein international
file cabinets, desk drawers,fam- scientificcircles.
Whetheror not MortonandAgassiz
ily albums, and local archives
discussedracialtheoryat theirfirst
have now been displaced to the
meetingis unclear.Until that point,
autonomous, unifying context of Agassizhad shown little interestin racial
the art museum. typologiesand had not yet embracedthe
theoryof separatecreation.He was
impressedby the skulls,though.For a
collectorlikeAgassiz,the effectwas
dramatic,and he wroteto his motherat
ence on the understanding of race in once: "Imaginea seriesof 600 skulls,most
America. Morton's first book collected of Indiansfromall tribeswho inhabitor
data on the shape and capacity of the once inhabitedNorth America.Nothing
skulls of various North American types, like it existsanywhereelse. This collec-
classified as white, Indian, Eskimo, and tion, by itself,is wortha trip to America."
Negro. Judging that the ancient skulls he However,in the sameletterto his mother,
had collected from Indian burials and Agassizrecordedanotherevent that may
other sites did not differ markedly from haveeitherreflectedhis conversations
modern skulls of the same race, Morton with Mortonor simplyjoltedhim into a
concluded that the races always had the confrontationwith the issueof race.He
same physical and mental characteristics. wroteof his encounter,for the firsttime
In other words, he believed that racial in his life, with a blackman:
factors were static rather than evolution-
ary. Moreover, from a comparison among All the domesticsin my hotel were men of
skulls, Morton deduced that the races of color.Ican scarcelyexpresstoyou the
mankind had been separatelycreated as painful impressionthat I received,especially
distinct and unequal species (fig. 2).4 since thefeeling that they inspiredin me is
Prior scientific theory about evolution contraryto all our ideas about the confrater-
was almost universally creationist; that is, nity of the human typeand the unique
it conformed to the Bible in its belief in origin of our species... . Nonetheless,it is
the unity of all peoples as descendants of impossiblefor me to repressthefeeling that

42 Summer 1995
 ~~~~~~~~
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is4

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44
008"
bw~~iBgE~-?~_ ?
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• i. . . • .. . . .. i •i •
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they are not of the same bloodas us. In see- large curvednails, and especiallythe livid
ing their blackfaces with their thick lips color of theirpalms, I could not take my eyes
and grimacing teeth, the wool on their head, off theirface in orderto tell them to stayfar
their bent knees,their elongatedhands, their away.5

43 American Art
 Despitehis personalrepugnancefor the originatedand evolvedin uniqueways.
blackshe encountered,Agassizlater Regardingslavery,Agassiztriedspecifi-
claimedthat his beliefson racialtypologies callyto divorcehimselffromany political
werewithoutpoliticalmotivation,and he implications(or intentions)of his project:
remaineda staunchabolitionist,a position
that seemscontradictorygiventhe later Wedisclaim,however,all connectionwith
proslaveryembraceof his views.Morton,a anyquestioninvolvingpoliticalmatters.It is
Quaker,also arguedfor disinterested withreference
simply tothepossibility
of
science,althoughhis assertion,in Crania appreciatingthedifferencesexistingbetween
Aegyptiaca,that ancientEgyptianswerenot men,
different and of eventuallydetermin-
blackand in facthad employedblacksas ing whetherthey have originatedall overthe
theirslavesseemedto supportAmerican worldand underwhatcircumstances, that
slavery.But clearly,highlysubjective we havetriedto tracesomefacts representing
politicaland aestheticdecisionsgoverned thehumanraces.7
the developmentof polygenesis,particu-
larlyamongsouthernscientistsdetermined Yet, followinghis visit to Charlestonin
to provethe inferiorityof African-Ameri- March1850, Agassizwas motivatedto
can slavesin the decadesbeforethe Civil gatherspecificevidencefor his theoryin
War. relationto Africans.ThatAgassizwould
This "scientific"issuecameto a headat employsciencein a projectthat implicitly
the thirdmeetingof the AmericanAssocia- supportedthe southernview of slaveryis
tion for the Advancementof Scienceheld significantbecauseit demonstrateshow
in Charlestonin March1850. The central the pose of disinterestedempiricism
theme of the conferencewas the question actuallyfortifiedpreexisting,though
of the unity or diversityof species,and the unstated,politicalviews.Eventhe mode
featuredspeakerwasAgassiz.His com- of statisticalanalysishad an ideological
mentsto the Charlestonaudience,his first basischaracteristicof increasingmodern-
publicstatementregardingseparate ization.The maniafor the collectionand
creation,werecircumspect.But he madeit quantificationof naturalspecimens
clearthat he sidedwith the southernview coincidedwith otherstatisticalprojects,
of polygenesisand acceptedthe inferior such as the beginningof the annual
statusof blacks.The variousracesof census,statisticsfor crimeand health,and
mankind,he stated,were"wellmarkedand the mappingand surveyingof new lands,
distinct"and did not originate"froma exemplifyinga new way of seeingthe
common center... nor a common pair."' world.8Certainly,such scientificenu-
This statementeliciteda firestormof merationsreducedindividualsto statistics
controversywith the conservativeclergyin and involveddepersonalization, but, its
his hometownof Boston,andAgassizwas proponentsargued, modern quantifica-
obligedto makehis positionson Christian- tion would improvesocialorganizationby
ity and abolitionismclearin threelong helpingto cataloguethe needsof citizens.
articles published in the ChristianExam- In attempting to organize his data
iner. In these, Agassiz stressed that his regardingAfricans, Agassiz sought
views regarding separate creation did not firsthand evidence. Since the importation
contradict the biblical notion of a unified of Africans had been outlawed in 1808,
human origin. Rather, he argued, the Bible Agassiz was doubtful about finding "pure"
referredonly to the Caucasian inhabitants examples of the race in America. But Dr.
of one portion of the globe; Negroes, Robert W. Gibbes, who had given two
Indians, Hindus, and the other "species" papers in Charleston, encouraged Agassiz
he identified inhabited different and to visit the plantations around Columbia.
discrete geographical regions, having Gibbes, the son of a prominent South

44 Summer 1995
Carolinafamily,was a close friendof Paris,had proposedthe establishmentof a
manyof the leadingplantationowners, museumof photographsof the racesof
includingsuch familiesas the Hamptons, mankind.And, in 1845, a French
the Hammonds,and the Taylors.He was daguerreotypist namedE. Thiessonhad
also Columbia'sforemostauthorityon takenstudiesof Braziliansand Portuguese
scienceand culture.He was a nationally Africansin Lisbon.12But therewas no
recognizedexperton Americanpaleontol- precedentin Americafor the type of
ogy and, like Agassiz,an obsessivecollec- photographiccollectionthatAgassiz
tor of scientificspecimens.' soughtto build.
WhateverAgassizmay havethought In a letterto Morton, Gibbesexplained
about the racialstatusof Africansas he that duringa tour of plantationsaround
wroteout his lecturesin Boston,his
attitudewas radicallytransformedonce he
witnessedthe real-lifesituationof African-
Americanslavesin Columbia,South
Carolina.There,he encountereda tiny
[The daguerreotypes]help to
casteof aristocraticwhite slaveowners discredit the very notion of objec-
who commandedvastplantations(Wade
tivity and call into question the
Hampton'salonewas morethan eighteen
thousandacres)and owned as manyas supposedtransparencyof the
threethousandslaves.In 1850, the white photographic record.
populationof Columbiawasjust oversix
thousand,whereasthe slavepopulation
was in excessof a hundredthousand.
Given this huge disparity,upcountry
plantationownerswerejustifiablyfearful Columbia,Agassizhad selectedvarious
of slaveuprisingsand used a varietyof slavesto be photographed:"Agassizwas
fear-inducingtacticsto insuredocility. delightedwith his examinationof Ebo,
Thus, if attitudestowardslavesweremore Foulah,Gullah,Guinea,Coromantee,
tolerant,even paternalistic,in Massachu- Mandrigoand Congo Negroes.He found
setts or even Virginia,in South Carolina enoughto satisfyhim that they have
disciplinewas deemednecessary,and the differencesfromthe otherraces."After
need for disciplineseemedto encourage Agassizdeparted,Gibbeshad the slaves
an attitudeof contempttowardslaves.10 broughtto the local daguerreotypist,
How Agassizhit upon the ideaof JosephT. Zealy,and photographed.
photographingthe slavesis not fully Gibbescarefullyrecordedthe names,
known. The idea mayhavecome from Africanorigins,and currentownershipof
Morton,who had givenAgassiza da- the slaves.In June 1850, Gibbeswroteto
guerreotypeof a youngAfricanboy he Morton,saying,"Ihavejust finishedthe
had exhibitedbeforethe Academyof daguerreotypes for Agassizof native
Natural Sciences in Philadelphia."11 Or Africans of various tribes. I wish you
Agassiz may have been familiar with could see them."13
various calls in contemporary European The fifteen daguerreotypesare divided
scientific journals for the creation of a into two series. The first consists of
photographic archive of human speci- standing, fully nude images showing
mens, or types. For instance, Agassiz's front, side, and rearviews. This practice
colleague ltienne-Reynaud-Augustin reflected a physiognomic approach, an
Serres, a professor of comparative attempt to record body shape, propor-
anatomy at the Jardin des Plantes and the tions, and posture. Two slaves were
president of the Academy of Sciences in photographed in this manner-Alfred

45 American Art
 Jack's American-born daughter who lived
on the Taylor estate; Renty (figs. 12, 13),
from the Congo tribe, who also worked at
Taylor's estate; Delia (figs. 14, 15),
Renty's American-born daughter, who
also lived on the Taylor estate; and
Fassena (figs. 16, 17), from the Mandingo
tribe, a carpenterat the plantation of
Wade Hampton II.

Typological Systems

The efforts by Gibbes and Agassiz to

3, 4 "Alfred, Foulah, belonging to (side and back views; figs. 3, 4), from the systematize the slave daguerreotypes
I. Lomas, Columbia, S.C." Foulah tribe before his enslavement to I. represent an early attempt not only to
DaguerreotypetakenbyJ. T.
Zealy,Columbia,S.C., March
Lomas; and Jem (front, side, and back apply photography to anthropology, but
1850. PeabodyMuseum,Harvard views; figs. 5-7), from the Gullah and also to form a coherent photographic
University now the property of F. W. Green. The archive. As critic Allan Sekula has pointed
second series was more tightly focused, out in his landmark article "The Body
showing the heads and naked torsos of and the Archive," almost from its incep-
three men and two women. This series tion the photograph was perceived as a
adhered to a phrenological approach, form of currency within a closed system.
emphasizing the characterand shape of As currency, the photograph ascribed
the head. The daguerreotypesinclude value by both quantifying things and
front and side views of five slaves:Jack placing them in a circulating system that
(figs. 8, 9), from the Guinea tribe, a slave emphasized their similarity to or differ-
driver on Edgehill, the plantation of ence from other things. This system,
Benjamin F. Taylor; Drana (figs. 10, 11), generally perceived as an archive, attempts

46 Summer 1995
5-7 "Jem, Gullah, belonging to
F. N. Green." Daguerreotype
takenby J. T. Zealy,Columbia,
S.C., March1850. Peabody
Museum,HarvardUniversity

to give coherenceand meaningto seem-

ingly randomcomponents.Everyphoto-
graph,Sekulasays,takesits placein a
"shadowarchive,"that ultimate,imagi-
naryrankingand organizingof informa-
tion impliedby the veryselectiveand
classificatorynatureof photography.14
In fact, primitivearchivalsystemswere
immediatelycharacteristic of the
daguerrean era.The "shadow archive"of
earlyphotographs can be divided along
two generalorganizationalprinciples-
the laterallyorganizedcatalogueor the
verticallyorganizedgenealogy.The
catalogueattemptedto establishsimilarity
or differenceacrossa spatialdimension.
This conceptthus includedgrouppor-
traits,panoramicviews,and collectionsof
portraitsof famouspeople.The geneal-
ogy, on the otherhand, assembled
likenessor diversityacrosstime. This hierarchical ordering."5Individual images
categoryembracedfamilyphotographs were linked comparatively and organized
(often assembledin framesor, later,in dichotomously, thus creating and enforc-
albums),postmortemor memorial ing divisions between self and other,
photographs,recordsof changingscenes, healthy and diseased, normal and patho-
or changesin an individualovertime. logical. Strengthened by the seeming
Within the "shadowarchive,"both of transparencyof photographic realism,
these systemsfor organizingphotographs these categories and the divisions between
-and they often overlapped-implied a them soon took on the authority of

47 AmericanArt
 trajectoriesof power and desire, mastery
and projection, self and other that
triangulate the visual field and govern
reception.
By supplying an overabundance of
information, photography confuses and
problematizes its message; it creates what
author Roland Barthes calls a "reality
effect," a semblance of realism bound to
detail. In nineteenth-century parlance,
two technical words gained a certain
currency to describe how "reality"was
construed: the word daguerreotypewas
distinguished from the word stereotype.'6
8, 9 "Jack (driver), Guinea. Plantation natural "facts."Supplying either too Stereotypes were originally molds for
of B. F. Taylor, Esq., Columbia,
much or too little information, photo- creating multiple copies of printing type;
S.C." Daguerreotypetakenby J.
T. Zealy,Columbia,S.C., March graphs soon muddied the easy distinctions the word, therefore, came to connote
1850. PeabodyMuseum,Harvard between subjective knowledge and what generalized replication. The daguerreo-
University was called "objective."Owing to its type, on the other hand, was characterized
indexical properties-that is, that a by miniaturization, infinitesimal preci-
photograph retains a "trace"of an actual sion, and detail. These contrasting
existence, as does, say, a footprint- characteristics-the general category and
photography seemed to be entirely the specific case-are precisely those poles
objective. But the very literalness of that govern the logic of the archive.
photographs produces an uncontrollable The early ethnographic research
multiplication of meanings in even the conducted by Morton, Agassiz, and other
most banal images. And the equally members of the American School of
complex acts of taking, reading, or Ethnology depended on the collapse of
organizing photographs animate all the the specific and the generic into "type."

48 Summer 1995
10, 11 (overleaf top left) "Drana, The type representedan averageexample outward markings received wide circula-
country born, daughter of Jack of a racialgroup,an abstraction,though tion in mid-nineteenth-century popular
Guinea. Plantation of B. F.
Taylor, Esq." Daguerreotypetaken not necessarilythe ideal,that definedthe culture-the Branded Hand (1844) and
by J. T. Zealy,Columbia,S.C., generalform or characterof individuals the Scourged Back (1863), showing,
March1850. PeabodyMuseum,
HarvardUniversity
within the group;it subsumedindividual- respectively, a punished slave liberator
ity. As HerbertH. Odom explains,"The and a slave's lash-scarredback (figs.
12, 13 (overleafbottomleft)"Renty, termtyperoughlyimpliesthat the ob- 18, 19).18
Congo. Plantation of B. F. served,apparentlydisorderedphenomena Typological systems depended on the
Taylor, Esq." Daguerreotypetaken
by J. T. Zealy,Columbia,S.C.,
arebest explainedas deviationsfrom widespread contemporary interest in the
March1850. PeabodyMuseum, certaindeterminatenorms .... The body, especially the head. Silhouettes,
HarvardUniversity functionof classificationis then to decide portrait daguerreotypes, and phrenology
which observedcreaturemay be consid- all directed special attention to the shape,
14, 15 (overleaftopright)"Delia,
country born of African parents, eredas deviationsfrom eachset norm size, or characterof the head as a record of
daughter of Renty, Congo." and, of course, how many norms exist.""17 individuality. The polygenesists, by
Daguerreotypetakenby J. T. Zealy, contrast, were interested in defining
Columbia,S.C., March1850. Photographystrengthenedthe seeming
PeabodyMuseum,Harvard realityof the type by objectifyingthe
University individualand by usingpropsand other
detailsto accentuatethe "truth"of the
16, 17 (overleafbottomright)"Fassena
(carpenter), Mandingo. depiction.Typologicalphotographs- Theveryliteralnessofphoto-
Plantation of Col. Wade particularlythose that becamepopularin
Hampton, near Columbia, the 1860s and 1870s-were assumedto graphsproduces an uncontrol-
S.C." Daguerreotypetakenby J.T.
Zealy,Columbia,S.C., March
be self-evident,to speakfor themselves, lable multiplication of meanings
1850. PeabodyMuseum,Harvard and, at the sametime, to be generic. in even the most banal images.
University Typically,nativeswereidentifiedonly by
theircountry,tribe,or some othergeneric
label (forexample,"ABurmeseBeauty").
Anotherfeatureof type classification
and the typologicalphotographwas the separate racial types. Their charts, derived
emphasison externalappearance,on the from phrenological models, often showed
measurementand observationof the crude rankings from the primate head to
humanform (thatis, the skeletonsand the African to the classical Greek (fig. 20).
skulls),ratherthan on culturalforms. This thinly disguised racism was also
This practiceconformedto Agassiz's reflected in their field research,which
method as well. He had workedprinci- involved not only the physical measure-
pallywith fossilsand other"hard" ment of the body, but an assessment of
evidenceto determinehis classificationof the moral character, manner, and social
fish types.This objectifyingmethodwas habits of each racial type. For instance,
alliedwith physiognomyand phrenology, Morton wrote that the African Hottentots
the early-nineteenth-century sciencesthat were the "nearestapproximation to the
analyzedthe exteriorform of the human lower animals.... Their complexion is
body in an attempt to understand connec- yellowish brown, compared by travelersto
tions between different human groups as the peculiar hue of Europeans in the last
well as the inner workings of the mind stages of jaundice. . . . The women are
and spirit. As Agassiz said, "The material represented as even more repulsive in
form is the cover of the spirit";this he appearancethan the men.""'Needless to
regarded as "fundamental and self- say, such observations were often casual
evident." The discourse on slavery and and rarelydependent on what would
abolitionism was typified by such external today be called fieldwork. But as scientific
views of the body. Two images keyed to description, such views were legitimized.

49 AmericanArt
.
B
18 Albert Sands Southworth and
Josiah Johnson Hawes, Captain
JonathanW Walker's
Branded
Hand, 1845. Sixthplatedaguerre-
otype, 6.2 x 8.3 cm (23/4x 3 1/4in.).
MassachusettsHistoricalSociety,
Boston

The constructionof racialtypes,their comparison, had been handicapped by

rankingin a hierarchyof intellect,and the their own physical appearance, "which
analysisof the meaningof theirphysiog- lacked the features that could stimulate
nomy in the generalschemeof thingsall the artist through an ideal of higher
requiredthe presenceof a standard. beauty."20
Althoughthesescientistsarguedthat their This aesthetic standard underlay every
studiesweremadewithout prejudiceor classificatorysystem in the polygenetic
without models,thereis ampleevidence program, guaranteeing that the races
that a standardwas in placeto character- would be considered not only separate but
ize the Caucasianideal.As historian unequal. The embodiment of the classical
GeorgeMossehas argued,this view ideal in America, the standard against
emergedfromthe appropriationby which all the derogatory images of African
prerevolutionary Enlightenmentanthro- Americans were judged, was the neoclassi-
pology of the classicist
idealismof cal statue in white marble, typified by
JohannJoachim Winckelmann, best Hiram Powers's GreekSlave (fig. 21).
rememberedas the founderof arthistory. Various versions of this life-size standing
Winckelmannarguedthat the "physical nude sculpture, ostensibly representing a
beautyof the ancientGreeksaccounted modern Greek woman captured by Turks,
for the excellenceof theirart."The were wildly popular among American
ancientEgyptiansandAfricans,by audiences from the time of its creation in

52 Summer1995
 the slight chains on the GreekSlave's
wrists only accentuated the work's mildly
erotic and highly sentimentalized view of
slavery and the body. But the irony that
the model of purity and ideal beauty is
depicted as a slave was not lost on the
sculpture's earliest audiences, and the
statue was embraced by the abolitionist
cause. More pointed, however, was the
cartoon in Punch that depicted the anti-
ideal-an image of a black slave on a
pedestal (fig. 22).21
In nineteenth-century anthropology,
blacks were often situated along the
evolutionary ladder midway between a
classical ideal and the orangutan. From
these pseudoscientific studies a Negro
type emerged that was highly distorted
and almost unique to ethnographic
illustration. In comparing various
skulls, taxonomists often relied on the
device of the facial angle. This technique,
invented by the eighteenth-century Dutch
taxonomist Peter Camper, involved the
systematic evaluation of the profile
measurement from the tip of the forehead
to the greatest protrusion of the lips. For
Camper and others, the mathematical
capability of scientifically classifying such
information offered a new tool for the
investigation of evolution, or linear
development. Camper described his
project: "I observed that a line drawn
along the forehead and upper lip indi-
cated a difference in national physiog-
nomy.... When I made these lines
incline forwards, I obtained the face of an
antique; backwardsof a negroe; still more
backwards, the lines which mark an ape, a
dog, a snipe, &c."22Representations of
the facial angle of the Negro skull almost
always showed an abnormally pronounced
brow, protruding lips and teeth, and a
19 McAllister & Brothers, The 1844 until its triumph at the London back-sloping forehead. Curiously, these
ScourgedBack,1863. Albumen Crystal Palace Exhibition in 1851. Critics
silverprintcarte-de-visite.Collection "scientific"representationspreceded most
of NicholasM. Graver praised its chaste purity and its classical of the more familiar stereotypes and
proportions; male and female viewers derogatory images of African Americans
swooned. Rather than suggesting violence, in popular culture. The popular images

53 AmericanArt
built on the scientific ones and enhanced features.23The case of the Hottentot
or exaggerateddistortions of the black Venus marked the collapse of scientific
body. The subject's clothes were often investigation of the racial other into the
shown torn, partially removed, or missing realm of the pornographic. This sort of
altogether; the body itself was often elision of the exotic and the sexually illicit
shown being whipped, beaten, hung, explains in part the mid-nineteenth-
pierced, bitten, branded, or otherwise century fascination with distorting the
subjugated to a white oppressor. More- features of blacks in popular representa-
over, many of the exposed and attacked tions. In many texts (including Agassiz's
bodies were shown in explicitly erotic letter to his mother), blacks were made
poses, raising the question of how these not only animal-like or simian, but also
largely proslaveryimages functioned as a vulgar and overtly seductive.
type of pornography.
It is perhaps not coincidental that by
their unprecedented nudity, the slave The Type and the Portrait

Given this history of the distortions

wrought by typologies, it is particularly
ironic that historian Alan Trachtenberg,
This aestheticstandard underlay in writing of the Agassiz slave daguerreo-
types, refersto them as portraits and even
every classificatorysystemin the likens them to classical Roman busts.24
polygeneticprogram. Here, it is necessary to draw the funda-
mental distinctions between the type and
the portrait. Formally, the type discour-
ages style and composition, seeking to
daguerreotypesintersect with pornogra- present the information as plainly and
phy, that other regime of photography so straightforwardlyas possible. Thus, the
central to the 1850s (at least in Europe) images are frequently organized around a
and so exclusively concerned with the clear central axis with a minimum of
representation of the tactile surface of the external information that could distract
human body. While there is no absolute from the principal focus. Since objectivity
connection between photographs of the is the goal, the typological image appears
nude body and pornography, the vaguely to have no author. (In the case of the slave
eroticized nature of the slave daguerreo- daguerreotypes,authorship is irrelevant,
types derives from the unwavering, though it clearly pertains more to Agassiz
voyeuristic manner with which they than to the photographer Zealy.) And,
indiscriminately survey the bodies of the finally, the type is clearly situated within a
Africans, irrespectiveof the subjects' lives. system that denies its subject even as it
Agassiz was undoubtedly influenced in establishes overt relations between its
this regardby his great mentor, Baron mute subjects. The emphasis on the body
Cuvier, who took a particular-if not occurs at the expense of speech; the
perverse-interest in the Hottentot subject as already positioned, known,
Venus, an African woman who was owned, represented, spoken for, or
exhibited naked as a curiosity in Europe constructed as silent; in short, it is
because of her unusually prominent ignored. In other words, the typological
posterior. After her death, Cuvier con- photograph is a form of representational
ducted an autopsy of her body and colonialism. Fundamentally nonre-
published a text about its distinguishing ciprocal, it masks its subjective distortions

54 Summer 1995
 Fia. 839. Ri. 846.5R
-Apolle BevWldereS

FIo. 840.510 FIo. 846.*

ho.. 847.s4
Fio. 341. Negro•pe

FIo. 842.367

Obimpansee from
Hottentot
Somet.

Creole Negro.

FIG 843 euiag

ChhapnxeeA\
.-

FIG. 844 Moibe Negro, 186. Mobe Ne

Fl. 861. FIo.852.

20 Pagesfrom Nott and Gliddon, in the guise of logic and organization. Its personhood,a fact underlinedby legal
TypesofMankind(1854) formations are deformations. and socialstructuresas well. Further,the
The portrait, on the other hand, is of portraitsignaledan individual'splacein
value principally because of the viewer's society,which explainswhy so many
relationship to the sitter, the ability to daguerreotypes featuresittersposedwith
recognize the subject when he or she is the tools of theirtradeor otherattributes.
absent. In this sense, the portrait is like a As Sekulamakesclear,"Everyportrait
caricaturethat accents the telling features implicitlytook its placewithin a social
of an individual. Generally, the nine- and moralhierarchy.Theprivatemoment
teenth-century photographic portrait was of sentimentalindividuation,the look at
designed to affirm or underscore the the frozengaze-of-the-loved-one, was
white middle-class individual's right to shadowedby two othermorepubliclooks:

55 AmericanArt
 ?- i-?::::
: -----
:

-`ii-
i

:: :

::::::::
-::
"': ::

IB~P~ ;
-1

i::

li-li~~

4e :; ::

?i:

_:-ii--iii?
i
?;i:?
~i:?
:
::::::::i :::?~lli
;:--~?F:
_~;::-
~b_;I*;~,k0~
~8&~S?~
,. -;?--??i?-
i?-I:
:::::
I: ?-?^-i~?
~:~~ `:~~i?g?a-

21 HiramPowers,GreekSlave, a look up, at one's 'betters,'and a look the slavedaguerreotypes and a slightly
1869. Marble,11.7 x 35.5 x down, at one's 'inferiors."'25Few slaves, earlierproject(ca. 1846) by Mathew
34.2 cm (44 x 14 x 13 1/2in.).
NationalMuseumof American however,had the luxuryof projectingany Bradyto recordimagesof inmatesat
Art, SmithsonianInstitution, look at all. That slavesweredenied mentalinstitutions.26 These images,now
Gift of Mrs. BenjaminH. individualidentityin the antebellum are
lost, preserved in the line engravings
Warder
South is merelyunderscoredby the near- publishedas illustrations(fig. 23) to the
22 "TheVirginianSlave,Intended total absenceof photographsdepicting Americaneditionof Marmaduke
as a Companionto Powers' them. Sampson'sRationaleof Crime(1846),
'GreekSlave."'Engraving This processof socialrankingwas most editedby penalreformerElizaFarnham.
publishedin Punch20 (1851):
236 apparentin the workof earlycriminolo- Brady'simagesfortifiedFarnham's
gists,ethnologists,and medicalphotogra- argumentthat criminalsand cretinscould
phers.In such fields,it was necessaryto be recognizedby theiroutwardappear-
constructa standard,or mean, to establish ance, that the markof deviancewas
devianceand thus identifyand isolatethe presumedto be emblazonedacrossthe
ultimatethreatto the ideal.Trachtenberg headand body like a stigmata.With the
has astutelynoted the similaritybetween riseof urbanismand industrialization in

56 Summer1995
the mid-nineteenth century, such typo- ing its sources onto the oppressed. Any
logical readings were deemed practical to investigation of representations of African-
protect oneself from strangersby immedi- American blackness, then, must actually
ately assessing their character. take a critical look at Euro-American
This process of identifying another whiteness to understand the construction
person by superficial physical characteris- of race as a category. As critic Coco Fusco
tics structured the logic of racial classifica- has insisted, "To ignore white ethnicity is
tion. Surprisingly, such distinctions did to redouble its hegemony by naturalizing
not really exist before the nineteenth it."29In this regard, it is crucial to under-
century. To be sure, various forms of stand the arsenal of institutional means
prejudice and subjugation had existed in geared toward the enforcement of white
many societies, but prior to 1800, none of male superiority. Photography, typologies,
the variety of discriminatory terms and archives, and museums serve as disciplinary
attitudes employed were based on race. structures, socially constructed means of
Racism, as it emerged in the early nine- defining and regulating difference.
teenth century, was a heavily encoded and Like all representations of difference,
naturalized belief that racial characteristics Louis Agassiz's slave daguerreotypesexploit
the familiar ethnographic convention of
introducing the comfortable white viewer
to that which is not only exotic and safely
The typologicalphotographis a distant, but also generally and deliberately
invisible. But not all designations of
form of representationalcolo-
difference are the same. As Frederick
nialism. Fundamentally Douglass noted in a review of the work of
nonreciprocal it masks its sub- the American School of Ethnology in
1854:
jective distortions in the guise of
logic and organization. Itsfor- It isfashionable now, in our land, to exagger-
mations are deformations. ate the differencesbetweenthe negroand the
European.If for instance,a phrenologistor
naturalist undertakesto representin portraits,
the differencebetweenthe two races-the
and behaviors were grounded in biology negroand the European-he will invariably
and conformed to a qualitative hierar- present the highest typeof the European,and
chy.27But, as historian George M. the lowest typeof the negro. the very
.... If
Fredrickson has argued, "for its full besttypeof the Europeanis alwayspresented,
growth, intellectual and ideological, I insist that justice, in all such works,
racism required a body of 'scientific' and demands that the verybesttypeof the negro
cultural thought which would give should be taken. The importanceof this
credence to the notion that the blacks criticismmay not be apparentto all;--to the
were for unalterable reasons of race, mor- black man it is veryapparent.30
ally and intellectually inferior to whites."28
Agassiz's slave photographs constitute a As Douglass so pointedly noted, the
perfect example of the conjunction of meaning of representations is governed not
scientific and cultural thought in the only by who makes the image but also by
formation of racist ideology. who looks. If this view accords with much
In attempting to understand the recent critical theory that acknowledges the
origins of racism, it is important to avoid role of the observer in constructing knowl-
removing it to a historical past or displac- edge, it also points to the part that muse-

57 AmericanArt
23 "S.S., a vagrant,formerlya prize-
fightersent to the StatePrisonfor
five yearsfor assaultand battery, A 157
PI'ENID)IX
with intent to kill."Engraving
by
TudorHorton,afterlostdaguerreo-
typebyMathewBrady,ca. 1846.
Published in Marmaduke Sampson,
Rationaleof Crime,ed.ElizaFarnham
(New York:Appleton's,1846)

S. S. is a vagrant, and inmate of what is termed the Luna.

House, on Blackwell's Island. He is an Irishman; was for-
merly a prize-fightei'; was sent to the State Prison for five
years for assault and battery, with intent to kill, and since his
liberation, a period of some six or eight years, has spent most
of his time in the city and county prisons of New-York. Be-
fore his mind became deranged, lie exhibited great energy of
passion and purpose, but they were all of a low character, their
sole bearing being to prove his own superiority as an animal.
He was both vain and selfish.
The drawing shows a broad, low head, corresponding with
such a character. The moral organs are exceedingly deficient,
especially benevolence, and thle intellect only moderately devel-
oped. The whole organization, indeed, indicates a total want
of every thing like refined and elevated sentiment. If the
higher capacities and endowments of humanity were ever
found coupled with such a head as this, it would be a phe-
nomenon as inexplicable as that of seeing without the eye, or
hearing without the ear.

ums and archives play in fixing meanings. practices and to recognize that their
By adhering to immutable versions of versions of history are not absolute. Such
historical truth, such institutions structure critical methods will help foster multiplic-
information according to ideologically ity, subjectivity, and relativity in the
inflected principles. But rather than construction of histories.
dismissing or rejecting these institutions, In the case of the slave daguerreotypes,
it is important to critically examine their this suggests that their meaning extends

58 Summer 1995
24 Carrie Mae Weems, Sea Island well beyondthe empiricalproof that that combinedtexts,narratives,photo-
Series, 1992. Threecolor prints:two LouisAgassizsought.Quite different- graphs,and plates.Among the images
panels,50.8 cm in diameter(20 in. in
diameter),one panel,40.6 x 50.8 cm
but no lessvalid-histories and personal incorporatedinto Weems'sworkswere
(16 x 20 in.). P.P.O.W., New York meaningscan be connectedwith these old picturesof severalslaveswho had
images.If colonialismand ethnographic come fromAfrica-reproductionsof
exploitationdependon appropriation, Agassiz'sslavedaguerreotypes (fig. 24).31
one must acknowledgethatwhat is taken She did not alteror transformthe images;
can alwaysbe takenback.In 1991, for she only selected,enlarged,and
example,the African-American artistand recontextualized them. By placingthem
photographerCarrieMae Weemsjour- besidepicturesof remnantsof the African
neyedto the Sea Islandsoff the coastof culturethe Gullahbroughtto America,
South Carolinato recordthe remnantsof Weemsviewedtheirlivesempathetically
the cultureof the Gullah,the survivorsof from a blackpoint of view. She sawthese
slavesfromAfrica.Weemsphotographed men and women not as representatives of
bricksheltersand othersurvivingrecords some typologybut as living,breathing
of the Gullah,producinga seriesof works ancestors.She madethem portraits.

59 AmericanArt
Notes
1 RosalindKrauss,"Photography's 7 Agassiz,"TheDiversityof Originof the an ante-room,for the properadjustment
DiscursiveSpaces,"ArtJournal42 Human Races,"ChristianExaminer49 of toilette,etc., by his visitors.It is
(winter1982): 311-19. See also Douglas (1850): 113. magnificentlylighted,having,besides
Crimp,"TheMuseum'sOld/The numerouswindows,a largeskylight
Library'sNew Subject,"Parachute22 8 SeeJonathanCrary,Techniques
of the adjustedand constructedfor the purposes
(spring1981): 32-37; andAllanSekula, On Visionand Modernityin the
Observer: of his art,andwill undoubtedlyinsurea
"DismantlingModernism,Reinventing NineteenthCentury(Cambridge,Mass.: most perfectfinish to his pictures."
Documentary(Notes on the Politicsof MIT Press,1990). Photographic Art-Journal 2 (December
Representation)," MassachusettsReview 1891): 376-77.
19 (winter1978): 859-83. 9 For moreon Gibbsand the plantation
ownersaroundColumbia,see Carol 14 Allan Sekula,"The Body and the
2 See MarthaA. Sandweiss,ed., Photogra- Bleser,ed., Secretand Sacred:TheDiaries Archive,"October39 (winter 1986): 3-
phy in Nineteenth-CenturyAmerica(Fort of amesHenryHammond,a Southern 64.
Worth:Amon CarterMuseum, 1991). Slaveholder (New York:OxfordUniver-
One of the slavedaguerreotypes was also sity Press,1988). 15 Ibid., p. 10.
featuredon the coverof the cataloguefor
the exhibition"FromSite to Sight," 10 See GeorgeM. Frederickson,"Masters 16 See RolandBarthes,"TheRealityEffect,"
organizedby the PeabodyMuseum, and Mudsills:The Role of Racein the in TheRustleof Language,trans.Richard
HarvardUniversity,and circulatedby the PlanterIdeologyof South Carolina,"The Howard(New York:Hill andWang,
SmithsonianInstitutionin 1986. ArroganceofRace:HistoricalPerspectives 1986), pp. 141-48. For the etymologyof
Agassiz'sfifteenslavedaguerreotypes on Slavery,Racism,and SocialInequality see SanderL.
the word stereotype,
arepublishedherein theirentiretyfor (Middletown,Conn.:Wesleyan Gilman,Differenceand Pathology:
the firsttime. UniversityPress,1988), pp. 15-27. Stereotypeof Sexuality, Race, and Madness
(Ithaca,N.Y.: CornellUniversityPress,
3 On LouisAgassiz,see EdwardLurie, takenby W. & J.
11 This daguerreotype, 1989), pp. 15-35; on the usesof the
LouisAgassiz:A Lifein Science(Chicago: Langenheim, reproducedin Melissa
is word daguerreotype,seeAlan
Universityof Chicago, 1960). Bantaand GeorgeHinsley,FromSite to Trachtenberg,"Photography: The
Photography,
Sight:Anthropology, and the of a in
Emergence Keyword," Photogra-
4 For the best discussionof Mortonand Powerof1magery(Cambridge,Mass.: phy in Nineteenth-CenturyAmerica,
the AmericanSchoolof Ethnology,see HarvardUniversityPress,1986), p. 34. Sandweiss,ed., pp. 13-47.
WilliamStanton, TheLeopard's Spots:
ScientificAttitudesTowardRacein 12 For moreon Frenchattemptsto use 17 HerbertH. Odom, "Generalizations on
America,1815-59 (Chicago:University daguerreotypes for anthopologicalstudy, Racein Nineteenth-CenturyAmerica,"
of Chicago, 1960). See also StephenJay see lEtienne-Reynaud-Augustin Serres, Isis58 (spring1967): 5-18. See also
Gould'sclassicTheMismeasure ofMan "Observations surI'applicationde la ElizabethEdwards,"Photographic
(New York:W. W. Norton & Co., photographieal'dtudedes race 'Types':The Pursuitof Method,"Visual
1981), pp. 50ff. Gould restagedmanyof humaines,"ComptesRendusdesSeancesde Anthropology 3 (1990): 235-58. Edwards
Morton'scranialmeasurementsand l'AcadimiedesSciences21 (1845): 242- notes that the Socidtdd'Ethnographiein
discoveredimportantdiscrepanciesthat 46; HartmutKrech,"Lichtbilder vom Parishad initiateda masterarchival
demonstratedthat thereis little differ- Menschen:Vom Typenbildzur projectrecording"humantypes"as early
ence in the size of the cranialcavityof anthropologischen Fotographie," as 1866.
differentindividuals,regardlessof race. 4 (1984): pp. 3-15; and
Fotogeschichte
The culminatingdocumentof the "Anwendungder Photographiezum 18 Agassiz,quotedin DictionaryofAmerican
anti-DarwinistAmericanSchoolof Studiumder Menschenracen," Dingler's Biography,vol. 1 (New York:Charles
EthnologywasJ. C. Nott and GeorgeR. PolytechnischesJournal (Stuttgart) 97 Scribner'sSons, 1928), p. 120. For
Gliddon, TypesofMankind(Philadel- (1845): 400. On Theisson,in particular, informationon the BrandedHand and
phia, 1854), which featuredan introduc- see Janet E. Buerger, French Daguerreo- the ScourgedBack,see, respectively,
tion by Agassiz.Nott and Gliddon, types(Chicago:Universityof Chicago RobertSobieszekand OdetteM. Appel,
thoughdistinguishedscientists,were Press,1990), pp. 90-91, 229. TheSpiritof Fact:TheDaguerreotypes of
both rabidsegregationists who distorted Southworth& Hawes,1843-1862
arthistoricaland archeologicalevidence 13 RobertW. Gibbesto SamuelG. Morton, (Boston:David R. Godine, 1980), p. 23;
(mainlyfrom Egyptiantombs)to 31 MarchandJune 1850, Library and KathleenCollins,"TheScourged
promotetheirview that blackswere Companyof Philadelphia.Althoughlittle Back,"Historyof Photography 9, no. 1
historicallyinferiorto otherraces. is known aboutJosephT. Zealy,we can (January-March1985): 43-45.
imaginethe slaves'shockupon entering
5 Agassizto his mother,December1846 his gallery.The local newspapereditor 19 Morton, Crania Americana (Philadelphia:
(HoughtonLibrary,HarvardUniversity), wrote that Zealy'sgallerywas "fittedup John Pennington,1839), p. 90.
quotedin Gould, pp. 50, 44-45. with great taste. . . . The room where he
takeshis picturesis handsomely 20 Winckelmann,paraphrased in Hugh
6 furnished,andwe notice thereinan Honour, TheImageof theBlackin
Agassiz,quotedin ElinorReichlin, Art,vol. 4, pt. 2 (Cambridge,
Western
"Facesof Slavery:A HistoricalFind," elegantpiano, for the accommodationof
his ladyvisitors.Immediatelyoff this is Mass.:HarvardUniversityPress),p. 14.
AmericanHeritage28 (June1977): 4.

60 Summer 1995
21 SeeJoy S. Kasson,MarbleQueens& in Daguerreotypes," Quarterly Journalof 29 CocoFusco,"Fantasies
of Oppositionality,"
Captives:Womenin Nineteenth-Century theLibraryof Congress 31 (July1974): 16 (December1988):6-9.
Afterimage
AmericanSculpture(New Haven:Yale 127-35. This seriesis also discussedin
UniversityPress,1990). Sekula,"TheBody and the Archive,"p. 30 FrederickDouglass,"TheClaimsof the
20; and in Trachtenberg,Reading Negro EthnologicallyConsidered:An
22 PeterCamper,quotedin Honour, p. 14. AmericanPhotographs, AddressDeliveredin Hudson, Ohio, on
pp. 57-58.
12 July 1854,"in TheFrederick
Douglass
23 See SanderL. Gilman'simportantbut 27 LiterarytheoristAnthonyAppiahmakes Papers,ed. JohnW. Blessingame,vol. 2
controversialtreatmentof this historyin a distinctionbetweenwhat he calls (New Haven:YaleUniversityPress,
"BlackBodies,White Bodies:Towardan "racialist"and "racist"discourses.The 1979), pp. 510, 514.
Iconographyof FemaleSexualityin Late firstinvolvesa distinctionof difference
Nineteenth-CenturyArt, Medicineand 31 SeeAndreaKirshand SusanFisher
that may haveno moralor evaluative
" Writing,and
in "Race,
Literature," distinctionattributedto it; the second Sterling,CarrieMae Weems(Washing-
Difference, HenryLouisGatesJr.
ed. ton, D.C.: NationalMuseumof Women
involvesthe applicationof that distinc- in the Arts, 1994), pp. 102-9.
(Chicago:Universityof ChicagoPress, tion to a hierarchicalevaluationthat
1986); and StephenJayGould, "The In conjunctionwith the Getty
HottentotVenus,"NaturalHistory19 signalsthe inferiorityof one groupin Museum's"HiddenWitness"exhibition
relationto another.See KwameAnthony (28 February-18June 1995) of early
(1982): 20-27.
Appiah,"Racisms,"in Anatomyof photographyof African-American
24 SeeAlan Trachtenberg,ReadingAmerican Racism,ed. GaryDavid Goldberg subjects,Weemswas invitedto produce
Imagesas History:Mathew
Photographs: (Minneapolis:Universityof Minnesota her own installation,"CarrieMae Weems
Bradyto WalkerEvans(New York:Hill Press,1990), pp. 4-5. Reactsto 'HiddenWitness',"in an
& Wang, 1989), pp. 54-56. adjacentgallery.Using the formatof her
28 GeorgeM. Fredrickson,TheBlackImage Sea Islandswork,she rephotographed
p. 10.
25 Sekula,"TheBodyandtheArchive," in the WhiteMind: TheDebateonAfro- olderimagesand addedtextsto comment
AmericanCharacter and Destiny,1817- on the photographs'hiddeninformation
26 See MadeleineB. Stern,"MathewBrady 1914 (Middletown,Conn.:Wesleyan and the changingrepresentations of black
and the Rationaleof Crime:A Discovery UniversityPress,1988), p. 2. subjects.

61 AmericanArt