Lewis Henry Morgan (November 21, 1818 – December 17, 1881) was a pioneering anthropologist and social theorist, and one of the greatest American social scientists of the nineteenth century. He is best known for his work on kinship and social structure, his theories of social evolution, and his ethnography of the Iroquois. Adopted by the Left after his death, Morgan is the only American social theorist to be cited by Darwin, Marx and Freud.
Born i...
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Lewis Henry Morgan (November 21, 1818 – December 17, 1881) was a pioneering anthropologist and social theorist, and one of the greatest American social scientists of the nineteenth century. He is best known for his work on kinship and social structure, his theories of social evolution, and his ethnography of the Iroquois. Adopted by the Left after his death, Morgan is the only American social theorist to be cited by Darwin, Marx and Freud.
Born in Aurora, New York, Morgan graduated Union College in 1840, where he became a member of The Kappa Alpha Society, and studied law in his home town. At this time, he became a founding "warrior" of the Grand Order of the Iroquois, a ritualistic fraternity of young white men who dressed up like the Native Americans who used to inhabit the land around them. In 1844, he moved to Rochester, New York, also in old Iroquois territory. His interest in the rituals of the Grand Order was replaced by his desire to learn about the real Iroquois. With the...
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