The Divergent Social Scientist: The Entanglement of Lewis Henry Morgan’s Interests in Railroads, Business, and Politics
Courtesy of Rare Books, Special Collection and Preservation, University of Rochester.
Authored by: Samuel Roth.
Lewis Henry Morgan was elected to the New York State Assembly as one of three representatives of Monroe County for the 1861 session. This diagram depicts the layout of the chamber, including numbered seating arrangements for current assemblymen, and the names of various reporters and staff members, such as Henry Henderson, 1st Asst. Door Keeper. Lewis Henry Morgan is seated in chair number 61 in the left-center section, three rows from the main floor. Seated behind Morgan is D. Card of the Rochester Daily Express, a partisan Republican publication.
Morgan’s intention in running for a seat in the Assembly was to become the commissioner of the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), the executive position for the construction of federal Indian policies. The position required a nomination from the President of the United States, and thus Morgan needed to establish a presence in the legislature. He persuaded the chairman of the assembly’s Committee on Indian Affairs to exchange assignments. Morgan had anticipated receiving the support of William Henry Seward, who unexpectedly lost the Republican presidential nomination to Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln’s campaign manager had already promised the position of head of the BIA to someone else.
An unflattering picture of Morgan as an assemblyman can be found in William D. Murphy’s Biographical Sketches of the State Officers and Members of the Legislature of the State of New York in 1861.