Lewis H. Morgan

Infobox Person
name = Lewis H. Morgan


image_size = 140px
caption = Lewis H. Morgan
birth_date = birth date|1818|11|21|mf=y
birth_place = Aurora, Cayuga County, New York, U.S.
death_date = death date and age|1881|12|17|1818|11|21|mf=y
death_place = Rochester, New York, U.S.
occupation = Anthropologist
spouse =
parents = Jedediah and Harriet (Steele) Morgan
children =

Lewis Henry Morgan (November 21, 1818 – December 17, 1881) was an American ethnologist, anthropologist and writer. Nevertheless, 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.

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.

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 tribe, 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).

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 work became one of the earliest examples of ethnography, and these initial researches led him to consider more specific questions of human social organization. Morgan set himself the task of collecting and sorting the systems of relationship terms used by tribes spanning the greater part of the United States of America. He also extended the research, through correspondence, to many other countries with regard to their native peoples. This research culminated in his seminal "Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity" (1871), which was printed by the Smithsonian Press. In this work, Morgan set forth his hypothesis of the Unity of Origin of Mankind, which presented itself, as he believed, in the similar characteristics of systems of relationship terms utilized by tribes separated by the vast oceans. Morgan also discerned in the evidence presented in his "Systems" the necessity of social institutions to develop, rather than remain stationary.

Several more years of research and study into related material led Morgan to revise his views, and combining this with an exhaustive study of classic Greek and Roman sources, he crowned his forty years of scientific work with his Magnum opus, "Ancient Society" (1877). In this work, Morgan set forth his theory 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 expounded 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.inote|http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/morgan-lewis/ancient-society/ch03.htm

Morgan's last work, "Houses and House-lives of the American Aborigines" (1881), was elaborated from what was originally planned as an additional part of "Ancient Society". In it, Morgan presented evidence, mostly from North and South America, that the development of house architecture and house culture was inseparable from the development of the other domestic institutions.

Many of the specific aspects of Morgan's evolutionary position have today been rejected and unilinear theories of evolution are not highly regarded, but connections between material culture and social structure remain objects of anthropological interest. Moreover, many anthropologists recognize that Morgan 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.

External links

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* " [http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/morgan-lewis/ancient-society/ Ancient Society] " By Lewis H. Morgan (complete text online)