The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

Henrietta and David Lacks, circa 1945.

The Immortal life of Henrietta Lacks

Left: Elsie Lacks, Henrietta’s older daughter, about five years before she was committed to
Crownsville State Hospital, with a diagnosis of “idiocy.” Right: Deborah Lacks at about age
four.
The Immortal life of Henrietta Lacks
The home-house where Henrietta was raised, a four-room log cabin in Clover, Virginia,
that once served as slave quarters, 1999.
The Immortal life of Henrietta Lacks
Henrietta’s mother, Eliza Pleasant, died when Henrietta was four. Henrietta is buried
somewhere in the clearing beside her mother’s tombstone, in an unmarked grave.
The Immortal life of Henrietta Lacks
The Immortal life of Henrietta Lacks
South Boston tobacco auction, circa 1920s. Henrietta and her family sold their crops at
this auction house.
The Immortal life of Henrietta Lacks
Sparrows Point workers cleaning a furnace by removing “slag,” a toxic by-product of mol-
ten metal, sometime in the 1940s. COURTESY OF THE DUNDALK-PATAPSKO NECK HIS-
TORICAL SOCIETY
The Immortal life of Henrietta Lacks
Howard W. Jones, the gynecologist who diagnosed Henrietta’s tumor, sometime in the
1950s.
The Immortal life of Henrietta Lacks
George Gey, who directed the laboratory in which HeLa cells were first grown, circa 1951.
© ALAN MASON CHESNEY MEDICAL ARCHIVE
The Immortal life of Henrietta Lacks
Henrietta Lacks’s death certificate.
The Immortal life of Henrietta Lacks
Sadie Sturdivant, Henrietta’s cousin and close friend, in the early 1940s.
The Immortal life of Henrietta Lacks
In 1949, labs had to make their own culture medium, a laborious process. In this picture,
the man is stirring broth in a vat while the women filter the broth into smaller bottles. After
HeLa, it became possible to order ready-made media by mail. © HULTON-DEUTSCH COL-
LECTION/CORBIS