Lewis H Morgan

1818-1881

Biography

Lewis Henry Morgan was born near Aurora, New York on November 21, 1818. He attended Cayuga Academy in Aurora before attending Union College, where he studied law and the classics. He continued to study law after college and became an established attorney in Rochester in 1844. He continued to practice law in Rochester until he began serving in the New York State Assembly between the years of 1861 and 1868, and he later served in the New York State Senate from 1868 to 1869. Morgan married his cousin Mary Elizabeth Steele in 1951 and proceeded to have three children with her. While an attorney by trade, Morgan became very interested in ethnology in 1844 after meeting with Ely Parker, who was a Seneca teenager fluent in English and Seneca. After graduating from college, Morgan joined a young men’s club called the Grand Order of the Iroquois which inspired Morgan to further study the Iroquois nation. Famous for being one of the first Americans to make scientific studies of Native Americans, Morgan was adopted into the Seneca tribe in 1846. Morgan died on December 17, 1881, in Rochester, New York.

Anthropology works

Morgan is considered to be “one of the founding fathers of modern anthropology” (Launay 2012). Morgan is famous for his study of kinship which also led to him later creating his own theory of cultural evolution. Morgan began his ethnological studies by examining various aspects of the Iroquois nation. After studying the Iroquois, Morgan published his first book, The League of the Ho-de-no-sau-nee or Iroquois, in 1851, providing one of the earliest examples of ethnological works that is still looked to by anthropologists today (Hume 2011).

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/283089912_Lewis_Henry_Morgan_League_of_the_Ho-de'-no-sau-ee

After studying the Iroquois, Morgan went on to study other Native American societies across the United States. Using the research he had gained, Morgan created a classification of kinship systems in cultures that he wrote about in his book Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity of the Human Family in 1870 (Fischer). Morgan made two major distinctions in the criteria between different kinship terms. Classificatory terms were created to describe more common forms of kinship systems while descriptive terms were created to describe less common forms of kinship systems (Fischer).

https://archive.org/stream/systemsofconsang00morgrich?ref=ol#page/n7/mode/2up

From the classification of kinship systems that he created, Morgan then went on to create his theory of evolution in which he argued a system of social evolution similar to that of Sir Edward Burnett Tylor’s. Morgan divided societies into three stages of social development in his book Ancient Society that he wrote in 1877, with the lowest stage of development being "savagery", the middle stage of development being "barbarism", and the final stage of development being "civilization" (Morgan 1877). Morgan additional divided savagery and barbarism into three substages, creating seven stages of social development. Each stage correlated with marriage, family, and political organizations, with "savage" civilizations having “no real family structure”, middle stages having a more “advanced” but still not a fully developed form of social structure, while the final, "civilized" stage of social development consisted of a monogamous-family society (Morgan 1877). While Morgan’s theory of evolution is very similar to that of Sir Edward Burnett Tylor’s, Morgan added a more racist tone to his findings than that of Tylor. Morgan’s work with his theory of evolution helped to advance the theories of cultural evolution and social Darwinism and inspired people such as Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Due to the influence Marx drew from Morgan and his work, many people today correlate Morgan’s work with Marxism (New World Encyclopedia). Morgan’s theories have been denounced by many modern anthropologists including the famed Franz Boas. Morgan’s evolutionary position of cultural evolutionism has been discredited and his theories of evolution are not seen as credible by modern anthropologists. Nonetheless, Morgan was one of the first people to study kinship systems in societies which has become a staple for the study of pre-Urban societies (New World Encyclopedia).

http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/45950

Aside from the books already mentioned such as The League of the Ho-de-no-sau-nee or Iroquois, Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity of the Human Family, and Ancient Society, Morgan also wrote many other books throughout his life. Examples include House and House-Life of the American Aborigines, The American Beaver and his works, Montezuma’s Dinner: A Review of Native Races of the Pacific States, and The Indian Journals 1859-1862.


Learn more

Works cited

“Department of Anthropology.” Morgan Lecture Series : Department of Anthropology : University of Rochester, www.sas.rochester.edu/ant/morgan/bio.html.

Fischer, Michael D. “Representing Anthropological Knowledge: Calculating Kinship.” Kinship and Kinship Terminologies, www.era.anthropology.ac.uk/Kinship/kinIntro.html.

Hume, Brad D. “Evolutionisms: Lewis Henry Morgan, Time, and the Question of Sociocultural Evolutionary Theory.” Histories of Anthropology Annual, University of Nebraska Press, 17 Dec. 2011, muse.jhu.edu/article/461238.

Launay, Robert. “Lewis Henry Morgan.” Obo, 11 Jan. 2012, www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780199766567/obo-9780199766567-0050.xml.

“Lewis H. Morgan.” Lewis H. Morgan - New World Encyclopedia, www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Lewis_H._Morgan.

Lewis Henry Morgan, http://stsmith.faculty.anth.ucsb.edu/classes/anth3/courseware/History/Morgan.html