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LEWIS HENRY MORGAN (1818-1881)

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Originally appearing in Volume V18, Page 835 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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LEWIS HENRY MORGAN (1818-1881)  ,
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American ethnologist, was born near Aurora, New York, on the 21st of November 1818 . He graduated in 1840 at Union College, then studied law, was admitted to the bar, and practised his profession with success at Rochester, New York . Soon after leaving college Morgan went among the
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Iroquois, living as far as he could their
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life and studying their social organization . In
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October 1847 he was formally adopted into the Hawk gens of the
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Seneca tribe, and received the name " Ta-ya-da-wah-kugh." The fruit of his researches was The
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League of the Iroquois (1851; new ed . 1904), which, says J . W . Powell, " was the first scientific account of an
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Indian tribe ever given to the
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world." The success of the
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book encouraged him to further research, resulting in his Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity of the Human
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Family (1869) . In 1877 he added to his reputation by
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publishing Ancient Society, or Researches in the Lines of Human Progress from Savagery, through Barbarism, to
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Civilization, in which he divided the progress of culture into seven stages— "
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lower savagery," "
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middle savagery," " upper savagery," " lower barbarism," " middle barbarism " and " upper barbarism," and " civilization." The book was in four parts, dealing with (I) the growth of intelligence through inventions and discoveries; (2) the growth of the idea of government; (3) the growth of the idea of the family; and (4) the growth of the idea of
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property . Morgan was a member of the New York assembly in 1861 and of the New York senate in 1868-1869 . In 188o he was president of the American Association for the
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Advancement of Science . He died in Rochester, New York, on the 7th of December 1881 . In addition to the
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works above mentioned and many
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magazine articles, he published The American Beaver and his Works (1868) and Houses and House-life of the American
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Aborigines (1881) .

End of Article: LEWIS HENRY MORGAN (1818-1881)
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