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Specific Person’s Importance to Movement 

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Specific Person’s Importance to Movement 

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Robert Owen established the first socialistic community, and continually aspired to enchant Americans about the thought of a “perfect” society. Dozens of other “Owenite” experiments began in other locations in the following years as a result of Robert Owen’s efforts.

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New Harmony was created to be a utopian society. It’s goal was to be a community where everyone is equal and education is prioritized. Robert Owen worked to attain this goal by buying the town of New Harmony, Indiana and creating a socialist experimental community there.

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Robert Owen’s Background and Experiences 

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Robert Owen’s Background and Experiences 

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Owen is widely credited with being the first person to advocate for a universal “eight hours labor, eight hours recreation, eight hours rest” approach to work-life balance. He experimented with this concept at his own factories and urged employers everywhere to adopt this management as part of his socialistic ideology. He also believed in lifelong education which focused on becoming a better person.

Owen sought to demonstrate the viability of his ideals by further establishing a new community, eventually known as New Harmony, that would adhere to them.

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New Harmony managed to create a socialistic atmosphere, but humanity at large was not ready to embrace all of Owen’s radical ideas, leading to the struggles and eventual downfall of the new community. Nevertheless, New Harmony’s own residents established the first public library, a civic drama club, and a public school system open to men and women, inspiring the rest of society to do the same. Many other individuals would develop and experiment with this form of “equality” in different projects and communities, making the movement a success in different aspects.

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Robert Owen was a Scottish industrialist and philanthropist who founded New Harmony in 1825, fixed on the ideas of a socialistic community with the vision of a utopia. New Harmony was under Owen’s care until an economic failure lead to the downfall of the town after just two years.

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Although the community collapsed, its influences of equality and education impacted America in other ways. Owen’s children advocated for women’s rights, abolitionism, and education. Robert Dale Owen became a congressman and worked to found the Smithsonian Institution. Other descendants of Owen continue to forward his ideals to this day, and the New Harmony community was known as a place of learning and equality throughout the 19th century.

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Pictured above is Mary Emily Fauntleroy, who was a preservationist in New Harmony. She made the Fauntleroy Home the first tour site in the town. Visitors can still tour the home today.