Morgan’s Unexpected Afterlife
Although Lewis Henry Morgan remained an ardent capitalist throughout his lifetime, his most famous work, Ancient Society (1877), was taken up and widely read by both socialists and feminists in the United States and Europe. Attracted by Morgan’s views on social evolution, Karl Marx, the radical German philosopher, had planned to write his own book based on Ancient Society, but died before he was able to finish it. Marx’s longtime friend and fellow radical Friedrich Engels published The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State in 1884, based on notes that Marx took on Ancient Society. In the years that followed, Ancient Society became required reading for socialists and feminists around the world, and it was often sold right alongside famous socialist books including Marx’s own Capital.
Karl Marx, ca. 1875. From Wikimedia Commons
Morgan and Labor
Morgan became a successful businessman and capitalist, yet he often wrote critically of capitalism and its consequences for workers. In 1852, Morgan gave a lecture entitled “Diffusion against Centralization” that called for strong labor rights and emphasized the value of popular education. In his speech, Morgan claimed that “Capital and labor are two independent powers, bound together by natural ties, but usually standing in opposite ranks.”
Wary of the concentration of power and property, Morgan was especially critical of large corporate monopolies. As he wrote in the best known passage of Ancient Society, “Since the advent of civilization, the outgrowth of property has been so immense, its forms so diversified, its uses so expanding and its management so intelligent in the interests of its owners, that it has become, on the part of the people, an unmanageable power.” Such statements resonated with readers who favored a broad distribution of wealth.
Built in 1849 on Exchange Place, Corinthian Hall housed the Rochester Athenaeum and Mechanics’ Association, and hosted concerts, plays, and lectures, including Morgan’s 1852 lecture, “Diffusion against Centralization.” Courtesy of the Rochester Public Library Local History & Genealogy Division.
Worker Education in Rochester
Labor Lyceum Building, St. Paul Street, Rochester N.Y., ca. 1920. Completed in 1913, the Labor Lyceum was a meeting place for Rochester’s socialists in the early twentieth century. Courtesy of the Rochester Public Library Local History & Genealogy Division.
Morgan trusted that education would diffuse knowledge and thus promote democracy and the spread of wealth. “Public lectures,” he declared, “are destined in this country to become powerful instruments of human improvement, and irresistible incentives to social progress.” Throughout his life, Morgan was devoted to popular education through public lectures and learned societies.
In the 20th century, many organizations in Rochester shared and continued Morgan’s dedication to the education of workers. The Rochester Athenaeum and Mechanics’ Association, a precursor to the Rochester Institute of Technology, aimed to educate working people, and it organized lectures and offered an extensive library. Likewise, the Young People’s Socialist League and the Proletarian Party worked to advance the rights of working people through political action and education. In 1928, members of the Proletarian Party, led by Arthur C. Parker, held a ceremony at Morgan’s grave in Mount Hope Cemetery, celebrating Morgan’s contribution to the Socialist Movement.
This case displays some of the artifacts associated with Morgan’s socialist legacy in Rochester, including a copy of Ancient Society given to the University of Rochester by Bertha Tishler, the wife of Isadore Tishler, an instructor in Rochester’s Socialist Sunday School and later president of the Progressive Working People’s Lyceum, located on St. Paul Street.