But Owen was also reacting to the powerful influences of the industrial revolution and the nega Ial regeneration, as Henry Nash Smith details it in Virgin Land, as well as to the success that communities like the Shakers were having in that environment. Undoubtedly, Owen was responding in part to the myth of the West and its place in the process of soc Owen became convinced that the United States provided he perfect setting for his utopian experiments, and he left Great Britain to pursue his ideas here. Improved and expanded the school system, to include education for both younger children and life-long learning for adults, which also provided indoctrination into his philosophies. At New Lanark, he developed a system of life for his workers that at once improved the conditions under which they lived and fixed his control over their lives. N mills at New Lanark, Scotland, the site of his now famous original social experiments. In 1799, Owen, with partners, was able to buy woole Nd the original Shakers had left Manchester for the United States less than twenty years before Owen arrived there, and in studying their success he became convinced that a communal utopia was possible. Once he had completed his apprenticeship, he used his considerable economic skills to manage factories in Manchester. Owen came to reject Christianity in favor of a more rational philosophy that included a belief in the need for social reform. He was lucky to be apprenticed to a prominent merchant who allowed him time to read and study. Owen therefore believed that by controlling the environment, superior character could be developed whiĬh would result in a new utopian social order.īorn in England in 1771 as one of the younger sons in a large family, Owen was forced to conclude his formal education at the age of ten. Owen based his conception of utopian society on the belief that an individual's character was shaped by his or her environment. Like the Shakers which it followed, and whose organization New Harmony's founder studied, and Oneida, which would follow it, New Harmony resulted from the utopian vision of
New Harmony represents one of the less successful American utopian experiments.
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