Lewis Henry Morgan (1818 - 1881)

Born 21 Nov 1818 in Aurora, Cayuga, New York, USA

Ancestors

Died 17 Dec 1881 at age 63 in Rochester, Monroe, New York, USA

Biography

Lewis Morgan is Notable.

• Pioneering anthropologist and social theorist. His correspondence included prominent people such as Charles Darwin, John Wesley Powell and Karl Marx.
• Morgan is credited with the appointment of Ely Parker (Seneca) as the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, a job never before held by a Native American person.
• Morgan's most widely known work is "The League of the Iroquois", which is dedicated to Parker
• He is credited with "discovering" matrilineal descent from correspondence with missionaries working around the world
• Frederick Engels' "Origin of the Family State & Private Property", written after Marx's death, draws heavily upon Morgan's work
• Morgan was a member of the National Academy of Sciences, and served as the president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in 1879
• Morgan's day job was as a railroad lawyer
• Morgan's archives are housed at the University of Rochester (NY), to which university he left much of his estate, to be used for the education of young women (at a time when that was controversial)

Sources

• Wikipedia
• PBS bio
• findagrave.com

From behind the ancestry.com subscription wall:

• US Census, 1850 occupation: lawyer
• NY State Census, 1855 occupation: lawyer
• NY State Census, 1865 occupation: lawyer
• US Census, 1870 occupation: lawyer
• NY State, 1875 occupation: lawyer
• US Census, 1880