The community at New Harmony of Robert Owen

Owen’s plans for the cure of pauperism were received with considerable favour until he declared his hostility to religion as an obstacle to progress. Many of Owen’s supporters believed that this action made him suspect to the upper classes, though he did not lose all support from them. To carry out his plan for the creation of self-contained communities, he bought 30,000 acres of land in Indiana from a religious community in 1825 and renamed it New Harmony. Life in the community generally was well ordered and contented under Owen’s practical guidance for a time, but differences in opinion about the form of government and the role of religion soon appeared, though a historical consensus exists that an admirable spirit prevailed amid the dissension. Owen withdrew from the community in 1828, having lost £40,000—80 percent of his fortune. The other chief Owenite community experiments were in Great Britain—at Queenwood, Hampshire (1839–45), in which Owen took part for three years; at Orbiston, near Glasgow, Lanarkshire (1826–27); and at Ralahine, County Cork (1831–33). He was not directly involved with either of the latter two communities.

Leadership of the trade union movement

In his “Report to the County of Lanark” (a body of landowners) in 1820, Owen declared that reform was not enough and that a transformation of the social order was required. His proposals for communities attracted the younger workers brought up under the factory system, and between 1820 and 1830 numerous societies were formed and journals organized to advocate his views. The growth of labour unionism and the emergence of a working-class point of view caused Owen’s doctrines to be accepted as an expression of the workers’ aspirations, and, when he returned to England from New Harmony, he found himself regarded as their leader. In the unions Owenism stimulated the formation of self-governing workshops. The need for a market for the products of such shops led in 1832 to the formation of the National Equitable Labour Exchange, which applied the principle that labour is the source of all wealth.

The unprecedented growth of labour unions made it seem possible that the separate industries and eventually all industry might be organized by these bodies. Owen and his followers carried on ardent propaganda all over the country, and this effort resulted in the transformation of the new National Operative Builders Union into a guild and the establishment of the Grand National Consolidated Trades Union (1834). Although the enthusiasm of the unions and the numbers of labourers joining them were remarkable, determined opposition by employers and severe repression by the government and courts ended the movement within a few months. It was two generations before socialism, first popularly discussed at this time, again influenced unionism. Throughout these years Owen’s community ideas maintained a hold, and ultimately they provided the basis for the worldwide consumers’ cooperative movement. After 1834 Owen devoted himself to preaching his ideas on education, morality, rationalism, and marriage reform. At the age of 82 he became a spiritualist.

Owen’s autobiography, The Life of Robert Owen, was published in two volumes in 1857–58 (reprinted 1971).