Lewis H. Morgan
Lewis H. Morgan
Born	November 21, 1818 Aurora, Cayuga County, New York, USA
Died	December 17, 1881 Rochester, New York, USA
Occupation	Anthropologist
Parents	James H. Morgan and Anna G. Morgan

Lewis Henry Morgan (November 21, 1818 – December 17, 1881) was an American ethnologist, anthropologist and writer. However, his professional life was in the field of law. As an amateur scholar, he is best known for his work on cultural evolution and Native Americans. Image File history File links Lewis Henry Morgan from [1] File links The following pages link to this file: Lewis H. Morgan Sociocultural evolution ... November 21 is the 325th day of the year (326th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1818 (MDCCCXVIII) is a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar or a common year starting on Saturday of the 12-day slower Julian calendar. ... Image File history File links Flag_of_New_York. ... Another Aurora is a town in Erie County, New York. ... Location in the state of New York Formed 1799 Seat Auburn Area  - Total  - Water 2,237 km² (864 mi²) 441 km² (170 mi²) 19. ... December 17 is the 351st day of the year (352nd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1881 (MDCCCLXXXI) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar). ... Image File history File links Flag_of_New_York. ... Nickname: Motto: Rochester: Made for Living Location of Rochester in New York State Country United States State New York County Monroe Government  - Mayor Robert Duffy Area  - City  37. ... NY redirects here. ... See Anthropology. ... November 21 is the 325th day of the year (326th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1818 (MDCCCXVIII) is a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar or a common year starting on Saturday of the 12-day slower Julian calendar. ... December 17 is the 351st day of the year (352nd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1881 (MDCCCLXXXI) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar). ... Ethnologyis a genre of cultural anthropology and| anthropological study, involving the systematic comparison of the beliefs and practices of different societies. ... See Anthropology. ... Lady Justice or Justitia is a personification of the moral force that underlies the legal system (particularly in Western art). ... Cultural evolution is the structural change of a society and its values over time. ... Native Americans are the indigenous peoples from the regions of North America now encompassed by the continental United States, including parts of Alaska. ...

Biography

Born in rural Rochester, Morgan studied law at Union College in 1840 and began practicing in his home town of Aurora, New York as well as Rochester. Morgan was a prominent man who received many accolades during his lifetime. He served in the New York State Assembly and Senate, was elected president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1879, and was a member of the National Academy of Sciences. He died in 1881. There is also a Rochester in Ulster County, New York; for that town see Rochester, Ulster County, New York. ... The architectural centerpiece of the Union campus, the Nott Memorial, is named after the colleges president from 1804-1866, Eliphalet Nott. ... 1840 is a leap year starting on Wednesday (link will take you to calendar). ... Aurora is the name of some places in the U.S. state of New York: Aurora, Cayuga County, New York (a village) Aurora, Erie County, New York (a town) For other uses or locations with this name, see Aurora. ... The New York Legislature is the legislative branch of the U.S. state of New York, seated at the states capital, Albany. ... The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is an organization that promotes cooperation between scientists, defends scientific freedom, encourages scientific responsibility and supports scientific education for the betterment of all humanity. ... 1879 (MDCCCLXXIX) was a common year starting on Wednesday (see link for calendar). ... President Harding and the National Academy of Sciences at the White House, Washington, DC, April 1921 The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a corporation in the United States whose members serve pro bono as advisers to the nation on science, engineering, and medicine. ... Year 1881 (MDCCCLXXXI) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar). ...

Work in ethnology

Morgan became interested in the Native Americans of his region and helped form a club (Grand Order of the Iroquois) to promote the interests of the local group, the Iroquois. He was formally incorporated into their society as an adopted member of the Iroquois tribe with the name Tayadaowuhkuh, meaning bridging the gap (between the Iroquois and the whites). Native Americans are the indigenous peoples from the regions of North America now encompassed by the continental United States, including parts of Alaska. ... Languages Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, Seneca, Tuscarora, English, French Religions Christianity, Longhouse religion Related ethnic groups other Iroquoian peoples The Iroquois Confederacy or Haudenosaunee (also known as the League of Peace and Power; the Five Nations; the Six Nations; or the People of the Long house) is a group of... This article does not cite its references or sources. ...

With the help of his Seneca tribe friend Ely S. Parker of the Tonawanda Creek Reservation, he studied the culture of the Iroquois and produced the book, The League of the Ho-de-no-sau-nee or Iroquois (1851). This volume became one of the earliest examples of ethnography, and these initial researches led him to consider more general questions of human social organization. In keeping with the general interest in social evolution common to his times, he began publishing books such as his seminal Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity (1871) and Houses and House-lives of the American Aborigines (1881). His goal was to explain the wide variety of kinship systems in indigenous societies as different stages in human evolution and social development. The Seneca are a Native American people, one of the Six Nations of the Iroquois League. ... Ely S. Parker Ely Samuel Parker (1828 – August 31, 1895), (born Hasanoanda, later known as Donehogawa) was an Iroquois of the Seneca tribe born at Indian Falls, New York (then part of the Tonawanda Reservation). ... Languages Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, Seneca, Tuscarora, English, French Religions Christianity, Longhouse religion Related ethnic groups other Iroquoian peoples The Iroquois Confederacy or Haudenosaunee (also known as the League of Peace and Power; the Five Nations; the Six Nations; or the People of the Long house) is a group of... Ethnography (from the Greek ethnos = people and graphein = writing) refers to the genre of writing that presents varying degrees of qualitative and quantitative descriptions of human social phenomena, based on fieldwork. ... Kinship is the most basic principle of organizing individuals into social groups, roles, and categories. ...

Developments in the field of anthropology mean that Morgan's legacy is far from simple. Like Herbert Spencer and Edward Burnett Tylor, Morgan was a proponent of social evolution. He proposed a unilinear scheme of evolution from primitive to modern, through which he believed societies progressed. His evolutionary views of the three major stages of social evolution, savagery, barbarism, and civilization, were proposed in Ancient Society. They are divided by technological inventions, like fire, bow, pottery in savage era, domestication of animals, agriculture, metalworking in barbarian era and alphabet and writing in civilization era. Thus Morgan introduced a link between the social progress and technological progress. Morgan viewed the technological progress as a force behind the social progress, and any social change — in social institutions, organisations or ideologies have their beginning in the change of technology. His theory became an important milestone in the development of social Darwinism. Herbert Spencer (27 April 1820 – 8 December 1903) was an English philosopher and prominent classic-liberal political theorist. ... Edward Burnett Tylor. ... Social evolution is a subdiscipline of evolutionary biology that is concerned with social behaviours, i. ... Savage has various meanings. ... A barbarism is a word or expression that is not standard in a language. ... Cities are a major hallmark of human civilization. ... Ancient Society was a book written by Lewis H. Morgan published in 1877. ... A forest fire Fire is a rapid oxidation process that creates light, heat, smoke, and releases energy in varying intensities. ... A bow is an ancient weapon that shoots arrows powered by the elasticity of the bow. ... Unfired green ware pottery on a traditional drying rack at Conner Prairie living history museum. ... Domesticated animals, plants, and other organisms are those whose collective behavior, life cycle, or physiology has been altered as a result of their breeding and living conditions being under human control for multiple generations. ... Turned chess pieces Metalworking is the craft and practice of working with metals to create structures or machine parts. ... For other uses, see Alphabet (disambiguation). ... Illustration of a scribe writing Writing, in its most common sense, is the preservation and the preserved text on a medium, with the use of signs or symbols. ... Social progress is defined as a progress of society, which makes the society better in the general view of its members. ... Origins of theory According to Czech philosopher Radovan Richta, in his 1967 publication “Man and Technology in the Revolution of Our Day”, technology (which he defines as “a material entity created by the application of mental and physical effort to nature in order to achieve some value... It has been suggested that Social development be merged into this article or section. ... A social institution is any institution in a socity that works to socialize the groups or people in it. ... Social Darwinism in the most basic form is the idea that biological theories can be extended and applied to the social realm. ...

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels relied on his accounts of the evolution of indigenous peoples to fill in their own account of the development of capitalist society. As a result many come to his writings from a leftist or Marxist point of view. Within the discipline of anthropology authors such as Leslie White championed Morgan's legacy while Franz Boas attacked it. Today Morgan's evolutionary position is widely discredited and unilinear theories of evolution are not highly regarded. However, many anthropologists recognize that he was one of the first people to systematically study kinship systems and there is a prestigious annual lecture memorializing Morgan given each year at the Anthropology Department of the University of Rochester. Karl Heinrich Marx (May 5, 1818, Trier, Germany – March 14, 1883, London) was a German philosopher, political economist, and revolutionary. ... Friedrich Engels (November 28, 1820, Wuppertal – August 5, 1895, London), a 19th-century German political philosopher, developed communist theory alongside his better-known collaborator, Karl Marx, co-authoring The Communist Manifesto (1848). ... Marxism is the political practice and social theory based on the works of Karl Marx, a 19th century philosopher, economist, journalist, and revolutionary, along with Friedrich Engels. ... Leslie Alvin White ([19 January [1900]], Salida Colorado -- 31 March 1975) was an anthropologist known for his advocacy of theories of cultural evolution and his role in creating the department of anthropology at the University of Michigan Ann Arbor. ... Franz Boas Franz Boas (July 9, 1858 – December 21, 1942[1]) was one of the pioneers of modern anthropology and is often called the Father of American Anthropology. Born in Germany, Boas worked for most of his life in North America. ... Kinship is the most basic principle of organizing individuals into social groups, roles, and categories. ... The University of Rochester (UR) is a private, coeducational and nonsectarian research university located in Rochester, New York. ...

External links

• Works by Lewis H. Morgan at Project Gutenberg
• Ancient Society By Lewis H. Morgan (complete text online)