Lewis Henry Morgan (November 21, 1818 – December 17, 1881) was a pioneering American
anthropologist and social theorist who worked as a
railroad lawyer. He is best known for his work on
kinship and social structure, his theories of social
evolution, and his
ethnography of the
Iroquois. Interested in what holds societies together, he proposed the concept that the earliest human domestic institution was the
matrilineal clan, not the
patriarchal family.