About the Lewis Henry Morgan Lectures
In 1963, the Department of Anthropology established the Lewis Henry Morgan Lectures as a tribute to Morgan's life’s work and his dedication to the University of Rochester.
A distinguished Rochester attorney, Lewis Henry Morgan (1818-81) was the author of The League of the Iroquois, (1850), Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity of the Human Family (1870), and Ancient Society (1877). Supportive of the University of Rochester from its beginning in 1850, he bequeathed to it funds for a women’s college as well as his manuscripts and library.
The series was inaugurated with three lectures by Leslie White, Meyer Fortes, and Fred Eggan, which explored Morgan’s influence on the study of kinship and the anthropology of Native North America. Over the past seven decades, more than sixty Morgan Lectures have been delivered at Rochester, leading to more than 35 books that have appeared in the Lewis Henry Morgan Lecture Series, which is currently published by Duke University Press.
The event is the longest running anthropology lecture series in North America, and it remains an annual fixture of the department's calendar, still drawing scholars from around the world.
Upcoming Morgan lecturers will be presented by:
- Camelia Dewan of Uppsala University, October 14, 2026
- Karen Strassler of the City University of New York, 2027
- Seth Holmes of the University of California, Berkeley, 2028