Lewis Henry Morgan (November 21, 1818 – December 17, 1881) was an American expert on the Native American cultures of Upstate New York and a founder in the field of ethnology. Expanding on his research on the Iroquois, he developed wide-ranging social theories that were influenced by a superficial interpretation of Darwinism and his own misinterpretation of Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) society. Nevertheless, as an early work in the developing field of ethnology, Morgan's ideas were influential, including on Karl Marx and Friederich Engels, particularly their notion of 'primitive Communism,' due to Morgan's emphasis on the role of the family and property in social evolution. He had a long and significant friendship with Ely Parker, the first Native American Commissioner of Indian Affairs, but the two had something of a falling out when President Ulysses Grant chose Parker instead of Morgan for that post. More by this mapmaker...

Ely Samuel Parker (1828 – August 31, 1895), born Hasanoanda, later known as Donehogawa, was a Seneca U.S. Army officer, engineer, and tribal diplomat. Born on the Tonawanda Reservation in Indian Falls, New York to a prominent Christian Seneca family, his family frequently interacted with white American scholars interested in the history of the Native Americans of the region, including Lewis Henry Morgan. Like Morgan, Parker trained as a lawyer but later attended the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and studied civil engineering. During the 1850s, he helped to upgrade the Erie Canal and also acted as an interpreter for treaty negotiations between the U.S. government and the Seneca nation. Around this time, he met Ulysses S. Grant, who later took Parker on as a member of his staff during the Civil War, a role in which he helped to draft the documents of surrender at Appomattox Courthouse. When Grant became president in 1869, he nominated Parker as Commissioner of Indian Affairs, where Parker pursued a policy of negotiation in place of military actions with Native American tribes in the American West. However, this proved difficult to enact in practice. The guiding philosophy, shared by Parker, was that Native Americans should be moved to reservations and (forcibly) assimilated into American society, which many were not willing to do, especially once they discovered the barren lands that had been assigned to them. When resistance turned to violence, Grant was pressured into using military force in response. Parker himself became the object of corruption charges lobbed by competing 'experts' on Indian affairs who coveted his job, and his authority was curtailed as a result. He resigned in protest in 1871. Learn More...

Richard H. Pease (1813 - 1869) was an American merchant and lithographer active in Albany, New York, during the middle part of the 19th century. Pease is best recognized for his publication of America's first Christmas card for the 1849 -1850 holiday season. He also played a role in populating the American version of Santa Claus and tying it to consumerism in the holiday advertisements his produced for his 'Temple of Fancy or Pease's Great Variety Store.' Pease operated the Great Variety Store in tandem with his lithography business until he passed the store on to his son, Harry E. Pease, in 1855. The store was located at 516 Broadway, Albany. Pease also published hand-colored lithographs of fruit for Ebenezer Emmons’s book Agriculture of New York State, published between 1846 and 1854. From 1856 to 1867 he worked with the lithography firm of Hoffman, Knickerbocker and Co. Learn More...