Robert Owen

File:Newtown Parish Register for births with an entry for Robert Owen, born June 12th 1771 (1294584).jpg

Robert Owen was born in Newtown, a small market town in Montgomeryshire, Wales, on 14 May 1771, to Anne (Williams) and Robert Owen. His father was a saddler, ironmonger and local postmaster; his mother was the daughter of a Newtown farming family. Young Robert was the sixth of the family's seven children, two of whom died at a young age. His surviving siblings were William, Anne, John and Richard.{{Cite encyclopedia |author=Douglas F. Dowd |title=Robert Owen |encyclopedia=Encyclopædia Britannica |edition=Online academic |publisher=Encyclopædia Britannica Inc. |url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Robert-Owen |access-date=8 September 2017}}{{Cite journal| author=Arthur H. Estabrook |title=The Family History of Robert Owen |journal=Indiana Magazine of History |volume=19 |issue=1 |pages=63 and 69 |publisher=Indiana University |location=Bloomington |date=1923 |url=https://scholarworks.iu.edu/journals/index.php/imh/article/view/6280 |access-date=29 August 2017}} See also: {{Cite book |author=Frank Podmore |title=Robert Owen: A Biography |publisher=D. Appleton and Company |volume=I |year=1907 |location=New York |pages=2, 4 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=E-sJAAAAIAAJ&pg=PR18}}

Owen received little formal education, but he was an avid reader. He left school at the age of ten to be an apprentice draper in Stamford, Lincolnshire, for four years. He also worked in London drapery shops in his teenage years.Estabrook, p. 63; Podmore, pp. 15–17.{{Cite web |author=Sir James Frederick Rees |title=Owen, Robert (1771–1858), Utopian Socialist |work=Dictionary of Welsh Biography |publisher=National Library of Wales |date=2007 |url=http://wbo.llgc.org.uk/en/s-OWEN-ROB-1771.html |access-date=30 August 2017}} (online version) At about the age of 18, Owen moved to Manchester, where he spent the next twelve years of his life, employed initially at Satterfield's Drapery in Saint Ann's Square.Podmore, pp. 23 and 41.A memorial plaque marks the firm's location.{{Cite web |title=Owen Blue Plaque |date=6 February 2016 |url=http://www.fotolibra.com/gallery/1305183/robert-owen-blue-plaque/?search_hash=08d9e595273a2a1b7220a0782576815e&search_offset=0&search_limit=100&search_sort_by= |access-date=29 August 2017 |archive-date=1 February 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200201133421/https://www.fotolibra.com/gallery/1305183/robert-owen-blue-plaque/?search_hash=08d9e595273a2a1b7220a0782576815e&search_offset=0&search_limit=100&search_sort_by= |url-status=dead}}

File:Robert Owen's House, New Lanark.jpg, Scotland.]]

On a visit to Scotland, Owen met and fell in love with Ann (or Anne) Caroline Dale, daughter of David Dale, a Glasgow philanthropist and the proprietor of the large New Lanark Mills. After their marriage on 30 September 1799, the Owens set up a home in New Lanark, but later moved to Braxfield House in Lanark.Estabrook, p. 64.{{Cite book |author=Robert Dale Owen |title=Threading My Way, Twenty-seven Years of Autobiography |publisher=G. W. Carleton and Company; Trubner and Company |year=1874 |location=New York and London |page=[https://archive.org/details/threadingmyway00unkngoog/page/n72 56] |url=https://archive.org/details/threadingmyway00unkngoog}}

Robert and Caroline Owen had eight children, the first of whom died in infancy. Their seven survivors were four sons and three daughters: Robert Dale (1801–1877), William (1802–1842), Ann (or Anne) Caroline (1805–1831), Jane Dale (1805–1861), David Dale (1807–1860), Richard Dale (1809–1890) and Mary (1810–1832).Estabrook, pp. 72, 80 and 83{{Cite book |author=Victor Lincoln Albjerg |title=Richard Owen: Scotland 1810, Indiana 1890 |series=The Archives of Purdue, no. 2 |date=March 1946 |location=Lafayette, Indiana |page=16}} See also{{Cite web |title=Richard Owen |publisher=Indiana Department of Administration |url= http://www.in.gov/idoa/2783.htm |access-date=15 September 2017}} Owen's four sons, Robert Dale, William, David Dale and Richard, and his daughter Jane Dale, followed their father to the United States, becoming US citizens and permanent residents in New Harmony, Indiana. Owen's wife Caroline and two of their daughters, Anne Caroline and Mary, remained in Britain, where they died in the 1830s.Estabrook, p. 72.Pitzer, "Why New Harmony is World Famous," in Traces of Indiana and Midwestern History, p. 11.

While in Manchester, Owen borrowed £100 from his brother William, to enter into a partnership to make spinning mules, a new invention for spinning cotton threads, but exchanged his business shares within a few months for six spinning mules that he worked in rented factory space.Podmore, pp. 42–43. In 1792, when Owen was about 21 years old, mill-owner Peter Drinkwater made him manager of the Piccadilly Mill at Manchester. However, after two years with Drinkwater, Owen voluntarily gave up his contract of partnership and left the company, and went into partnership with other entrepreneurs to establish and later manage the Chorlton Twist Mills in Chorlton-on-Medlock.Podmore, pp. 47–48.{{Cite web |title=Robert Owen Timeline |publisher=Robert Owen Museum |date=2008 |url=http://robert-owen-museum.org.uk/time_line |access-date=29 August 2017 |archive-date=10 October 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181010123944/http://robert-owen-museum.org.uk/time_line |url-status=dead}}

By the early 1790s, Owen's entrepreneurial spirit and management skills and progressive moral views were emerging. In 1793, he was elected as a member of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society, where the ideas of the Enlightenment were discussed. He also became a committee member of the Manchester Board of Health, instigated principally by Thomas Percival to press for improvements in the health and working conditions of factory workers.{{Cite web |first=Craig |last=Thornber |title=Thomas Percival, 1740-1804 |publisher=Cheshire Antiquities |url=https://www.thornber.net/cheshire/ideasmen/percival.html |access-date=30 August 2018}}{{Cite web |first=Clark |last=Kimberling |title=Robert Owen (1771-1858) social reformer, founder of New Harmony |publisher=University of Evansville |url=https://faculty.evansville.edu/ck6/bstud/robtowen.html |access-date=30 August 2018}}

In July 1799 Owen and his partners bought the New Lanark mill from David Dale, and Owen became its manager in January 1800. Encouraged by his management success in Manchester, Owen hoped to conduct the New Lanark mill on higher principles than purely commercial ones. It had been established in 1785 by David Dale and Richard Arkwright. Its water power provided by the falls of the River Clyde turned its cotton-spinning operation into one of Britain's largest. About 2,000 individuals were involved, 500 of them children brought to the mill at the age of five or six from the poorhouses and charities of Edinburgh and Glasgow. Dale, known for his benevolence, treated the children well, but the general condition of New Lanark residents was unsatisfactory, despite efforts by Dale and his son-in-law Owen to improve their workers' lives.Estabrook, p. 70.John F. C. Harrison, "Robert Owen's Quest for the New Moral World in America," in {{Cite book |editor=Donald E. Pitzer |title=Robert Owen's American Legacy: Proceedings of the Robert Owen Bicentennial Conference |publisher=Indiana Historical Society |year=1972 |location=Indianapolis |page=34 |oclc=578923}}

Many of the workers were from the lowest social levels: theft, drunkenness and other vices were common and education and sanitation neglected. Most families lived in one room. More respectable people rejected the long hours and demoralising drudgery of the mills.{{Cite web |first=Alex |last=cullen |title=Adventures in Socialism New Lanark establishment and Orbiston community |date=1891 |url=https://archive.org/stream/cu31924030362721/cu31924030362721_djvu.txt |access-date=30 August 2018}}

File:Truck system of payment by order of Robert Owen and Benj Woolfield, July 22nd 1833 (1294620).jpg

Until a series of Truck Acts (1831–1887) required employers to pay their employees in common currency, many operated a truck system, paying workers wholly or in part with tokens that had no monetary value outside the mill owner's "truck shop", which charged high prices for shoddy goods.{{Cite thesis |first=Richard |last=Weekes |title=The British retail co-operative movement |type=MSa |publisher=University of Central Lancashire |date=2004 |url=http://clok.uclan.ac.uk/2932/1/Weekes_2004.pdf |access-date=30 August 2018}} Unlike others, Owen's truck store offered goods at prices only slightly above their wholesale cost, passing on the savings from bulk purchases to his customers and placing alcohol sales under strict supervision. These principles became the basis for Britain's co-operative shops, some of which continue trading in altered forms to this day.{{Cite web |first=Marjie |last=Bloy |title=Robert Owen and the Co-operative movement |publisher=A web of English History |date=4 March 2016 |url=http://www.historyhome.co.uk/peel/economic/owencoop.htm |access-date=30 August 2018}}

File:New harmony vision.jpg, Owen's envisioned successor of New Harmony. Owenites fired bricks to build it, but it was never constructed.]]

To test the viability of his ideas for self-sufficient working communities, Owen began experimenting with communal living in the United States in 1825. Among the most famous efforts was the one set up at New Harmony, Indiana. Of the 130 identifiable communitarian experiments in the United States before the American Civil War, at least 16 were Owenite or Owenite-influenced. New Harmony was Owen's earliest and most ambitious of these.

Owen and his son William sailed to the United States in October 1824 to establish an experimental community in Indiana.{{Cite book |author=Richard William Leopold |title=Robert Dale Owen, A Biography |publisher=Harvard University Press |series=Harvard Historical Studies |volume=45 |year=1940 |location=Cambridge, Massachusetts |page=21 |oclc=774894}} In January 1825 Owen used a portion of his funds to purchase an existing town of 180 buildings and several thousand acres of land along the Wabash River in Indiana. George Rapp's Harmony Society, the religious group that owned the property and that had founded the communal village of Harmony (or Harmonie) on the site in 1814, decided in 1824 to relocate to Pennsylvania. Owen renamed it New Harmony and made the village his preliminary model for a Utopian community.{{Cite book |author=Karl J. R. Arndt |title=George Rapp's Harmony Society 1785–1847 |publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press |year=1965 |location= Philadelphia |page=298}}{{Cite book |last1=Spiegel |first1=Henry William |title=The Growth of Economic Thought |date=1971 |publisher=Prentice Hall, Inc. |location=Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey |pages=441–442}}

Owen sought support for his socialist vision among American thinkers, reformers, intellectuals and public statesmen. On 25 February and 7 March 1825, Owen gave addresses to the House of Representatives in Congress and to others in the US government, outlining his vision for the Utopian community at New Harmony, and his socialist beliefs.Estabrook, p. 66. See also {{Cite book |author=Robert Owen |title=Manifesto of Robert Owen: The discoverer, Founder, and Promulgator, of the Rational System of Society, and the Rational Religion |year=1840 |page=14}} The audience for his ideas included three former U.S. presidents – John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison – the outgoing US President James Monroe, and the President-elect, John Quincy Adams.{{Cite book |author=Rowland Hill Harvey |title=Robert Owen: Social Idealist |publisher=University of California Press |year=1947 |pages=99–100}} His meetings were perhaps the first discussions of socialism in the Americas; they were certainly a big step towards discussion of it in the United States. Owenism, among the first socialist ideologies active in the United States, can be seen as an instigator of the later socialist movement.

Owen convinced William Maclure, a wealthy Scottish scientist and philanthropist living in Philadelphia to join him at New Harmony and become his financial partner. Maclure's involvement went on to attract scientists, educators and artists such as Thomas Say, Charles-Alexandre Lesueur, and Madame Marie Duclos Fretageot. These helped to turn the New Harmony community into a centre for educational reform, scientific research and artistic expression.{{Cite journal |first1=Amanda S. |last1=Bryden |first2=Connie A. |last2=Weinzapfel |title =Editors' Page: 'That Wonder of the West' |journal=Traces of Indiana and Midwestern History |volume=26 |issue=2 |page=2 |publisher=Indiana Historical Society |location=Indianapolis |date=Spring 2014}} See also: {{Cite journal| author=Heather Baldus |title =A Broad Stroke: New Harmony's Artistic Legacy |journal=Traces of Indiana and Midwestern History |volume=26 |issue=2 |page=25 |publisher=Indiana Historical Society |location=Indianapolis |date=Spring 2014}}

Although Owen sought to build a "Village of Unity and Mutual Cooperation" south of the town, his grand plan was never fully realised and he returned to Britain to continue his work. During his long absences from New Harmony, Owen left the experiment under the day-to-day management of his sons, Robert Dale Owen and William Owen, and his business partner, Maclure. However, New Harmony proved to be an economic failure, lasting about two years, although it had attracted over a thousand residents by the end of its first year. The socialistic society was dissolved in 1827, but many of its scientists, educators, artists and other inhabitants, including Owen's four sons, Robert Dale, William, David Dale, and Richard Dale Owen, and his daughter Jane Dale Owen Fauntleroy, remained at New Harmony after the experiment ended.

Other experiments in the United States included communal settlements at Blue Spring, near Bloomington, Indiana, at Yellow Springs, Ohio, and at Forestville Commonwealth at Earlton, New York, as well as other projects in New York, Pennsylvania, and Tennessee. Nearly all of these had ended before New Harmony was dissolved in April 1827.Roger D. Branigin, "Robert Owen's New Harmony: An American Heritage", in Robert Owen's American Legacy, p. 20.Forestville Commonwealth was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974. See {{NRISref|2009a}}

Owen's Utopian communities attracted a mix of people, many with the highest aims. They included vagrants, adventurers and other reform-minded enthusiasts. In the words of Owen's son David Dale Owen, they attracted "a heterogeneous collection of Radicals", "enthusiastic devotees to principle", and "honest latitudinarians, and lazy theorists", with "a sprinkling of unprincipled sharpers thrown in".{{Cite book |author=Joseph Clayton |title=Robert Owen: Pioneer of Social Reforms |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nuspAAAAYAAJ&q=%22a+heterogeneous+collection+of+radicals%22&pg=PA43 |year=1908 |publisher=A.C. Fifield| location=London}}

Josiah Warren, a participant at New Harmony, asserted that it was doomed to failure for lack of individual sovereignty and personal property. In describing the community, Warren explained: "We had a world in miniature – we had enacted the French revolution over again with despairing hearts instead of corpses as a result ... It appeared that it was nature's inherent law of diversity that had conquered us ... our 'united interests' were directly at war with the individualities of persons and circumstances and the instinct of self-preservation".Warren, Periodical Letter II (1856) Warren's observations on the reasons for the community's failure led to the development of American individualist anarchism, of which he was its original theorist.{{Cite web |first=Jeff |last=Riggenbach |title=Josiah Warren: The First American Anarchist |date=23 February 2011 |url=https://mises.org/library/josiah-warren-first-american-anarchist |publisher=Mises Institute |access-date=30 August 2018}} Some historians have traced the demise of New Harmony to serial disagreements among its members.Estabrook, p. 68.

Social experiments also began in Scotland in 1825, when Abram Combe, an Owenite, attempted a utopian experiment at Orbiston, near Glasgow, but this failed after about two years.{{Cite book |first=Ronald |last=Garnett |title=Co-operation and the Owenite Socialist Communities in Britain, 1825–45 |date=1972 |publisher=Manchester University Press}} In the 1830s, additional experiments in socialistic co-operatives were made in Ireland and Britain, the most important being at Ralahine, established in 1831 in County Clare, Ireland, and at Tytherley, begun in 1839 in Hampshire, England. The former proved a remarkable success for three-and-a-half years until the proprietor, having ruined himself by gambling, had to sell his interest. Tytherley, known as Harmony Hall or Queenwood College, was designed by the architect Joseph Hansom.{{cite book |first=Penelope |last=Harris |title=The Architectural Achievement of Joseph Aloysius Hansom (1803–1882), Designer of the Hansom Cab, Birmingham Town Hall, and Churches of the Catholic Revival |publisher=The Edwin Mellen Press |year=2010 |page=75 |isbn=978-0-7734-3851-4}} This also failed. Another social experiment, Manea Colony in the Isle of Ely, Cambridgeshire, launched in the late 1830s by William Hodson, likewise an Owenite, but it failed in a couple of years and Hodson emigrated to the United States. The Manea Colony site has been excavated by the Cambridge Archaeology Unit (CAU) based at the University of Cambridge.{{Cite report |url=https://www.academia.edu/34742897 |title=Ouse Washland Archaeology: Manea Colony Investigations |id=Excavation Report No. 3 |date=January 2017 |access-date=6 December 2019|last1=Brittain |first1=Marcus }}

File:Portrait of Robert Owen (1771 - 1858) by John Cranch, 1845.jpg, 1845]]

Although Owen made further brief visits to the United States, London became his permanent home and the centre of his work in 1828. After extended friction with William Allen and some other business partners, Owen relinquished all connections with New Lanark. He is often quoted in a comment by Allen at the time, "All the world is queer save thee and me, and even thou art a little queer".{{Cite web |url=http://www.answers.com/topic/1828?cat=technology#human_rights_social_justice |title=1828: Information from |publisher=Answers.com |access-date=13 July 2009}} See also {{Cite web |url=http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?t=18866 |title=Who said this: "all strange but thee and Me" – Literature Network Forums |publisher=Online-literature.com |access-date=13 July 2009}} Having invested most of his fortune in the failed New Harmony communal experiment, Owen was no longer a wealthy capitalist. However, he remained the head of a vigorous propaganda effort to promote industrial equality, free education for children and adequate living conditions in factory towns, while delivering lectures in Europe and publishing a weekly newspaper to gain support for his ideas.

In 1832 Owen opened the National Equitable Labour Exchange system,Harrison, "Robert Owen's Quest for the New Moral World in America," in Robert Owen's American Legacy, p. 36. a time-based currency in which the exchange of goods was effected using labour notes; this system superseded the usual means of exchange and middlemen. The London exchange continued until 1833, with a Birmingham branch operating for just a few months until July 1833.{{Cite web |title=Timeline |publisher=TUC History Online |url=http://www.unionhistory.info/timeline/Tl_Display.php?Where=Dc1Title+contains+%27National+Equitable+Labour+Exchange+notes%2C+1832+%28front%29%27+ |access-date=30 August 2018}} Owen also became involved in trade unionism, briefly leading the Grand National Consolidated Trade Union (GNCTU) before its collapse in 1834.

Socialism first became current in British terminology in discussions of the Association of all Classes of all Nations, which Owen formed in 1835 and served as its initial leader.{{Cite book |author=Edward Royle |year=1998 |title=Robert Owen and the Commencement of the Millennium |page=56 |publisher=Manchester University Press |isbn=0-7190-5426-5}}Harvey, Robert Owen, p. 211. Owen's secular views also gained enough influence among the working classes to cause the Westminster Review to comment in 1839 that his principles were the creed of many of them.{{Cite journal |author=A. |date=1839 |title=A letter to the Earl of Durham on Reform in Parliament, by Paying the Elected |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sthMAQAAMAAJ |journal=London and Westminster Review |volume=32 |pages=475–508 |access-date=30 August 2018}} However, by 1846, the only lasting result of Owen's agitation for social change, carried on through public meetings, pamphlets, periodicals, and occasional treatises, remained the Co-operative movement, and for a time even that seemed to have collapsed.

As Owen grew older and more radical in his views, his influence began to decline.Estabrook, p. 68. Owen published his memoirs, The Life of Robert Owen, in 1857, a year before his death.

File:Crowd of people congregated by the grave of Robert Owen at the old parish church, Newtown (1293839).jpg |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/814892553/ |via=Newspapers.com}}]]

Although he had spent most of his life in England and Scotland, Owen returned to his native town of Newtown at the end of his life. He died there on 17 November 1858 and was buried there on 21 November. He died penniless apart from an annual income drawn from a trust established by his sons in 1844.Leopold, Robert Dale Owen, A Biography, p. 327.

Owen tested his social and economic ideas at New Lanark, where he won his workers' confidence and continued to have success through improved efficiency at the mill. The community also earned an international reputation. Social reformers, statesmen and royalty, including the future Tsar Nicholas I of Russia, visited New Lanark to study its methods.{{Cite journal |author=Kent Schuette |title=New Harmony, Indiana: Three Great Community Experiments |journal=Traces of Indiana and Midwestern History |volume=26 |issue=2 |page=45 |publisher=Indiana Historical Society |location=Indianapolis |date=Spring 2014}} The opinions of many such visitors were favourable.Harrison, "Robert Owen's Quest for the New Moral World in America," in Robert Owen's American Legacy, p. 37.

Some of Owen's schemes displeased his partners, forcing him to arrange for other investors to buy his share of the business in 1813, for the equivalent of US$800,000. The new investors, who included Jeremy Bentham and the well-known Quaker William Allen, were content to accept a £5,000 return on their capital. The ownership change also provided Owen with a chance to broaden his philanthropy, advocating improvements in workers' rights and child labour laws, and free education for children.

Owen felt that human character is formed by conditions over which individuals have no control. Thus individuals could not be praised or blamed for their behaviour or situation in life. This principle led Owen to conclude that the correct formation of people's characters called for placing them under proper environmental influences – physical, moral and social – from their earliest years. These notions of inherent irresponsibility in humans and the effect of early influences on an individual's character formed the basis of Owen's system of education and social reform.Merle Curti, "Robert Owen in American Thought," in Robert Owen's American Legacy, p. 62.

Relying on his observations, experiences and thoughts, Owen saw his view of human nature as original and "the most basic and necessary constituent in an evolving science of society".Curti, "Robert Owen in American Thought", in Robert Owen's American Legacy, p. 61. His philosophy was influenced by Sir Isaac Newton's views on natural law, and his views resembled those of Plato, Denis Diderot, Claude Adrien Helvétius, William Godwin, John Locke, James Mill, and Jeremy Bentham, among others. Owen did not have the direct influence of Enlightenment philosophers."Panel Discussion", Robert Owen's American Legacy, p. 85.

Owen hoped for a better and more harmonious environment that promoted mutual respect, love and moral values. He believed everyone would have a good education and better living condition to live righteously.{{Cite journal |last1=Carmony |first1=Donald F. |last2=Elliott |first2=Josephine M. |date=1980 |title=New Harmony, Indiana: Robert Owen's Seedbed for Utopia |jstor=27790455 |journal=Indiana Magazine of History |volume=76 |issue=3 |pages=162–163}} He valued social and educational reforms for the middle class and rejected the capitalist power which elevated the powerful figures at the expense of others.{{Cite book |last=Kishtainy |first=Niall |title=A Little History of Economics |location=New Haven |publisher=Yale University Press |year=2017 |isbn=9780300206364 |pages=50–52 |chapter=chapter 8}} Regardless of his adversaries' attacks, he remained persuasive of his goals. Owen funded kids' schools and advocated for free education, equal rights and freedom. He participated in legislation to improve labourers' wages and working conditions.

Owen believed compassion, kindness and solidarity corrected bad habits, encouraged self-discipline and enhanced a person's attitude. Force oppressed people and affected their mental health. In his view, unless people were educated in a proper environment, obtained equal opportunities for jobs and maintained social norms, differences between labour classes, conflicts, and inequalities would persist just as in the British colonies.{{Cite journal |last=Kumar |first=Krishan |date=1990 |title=Utopian Thought and Communal Practice: Robert Owen and the Owenite Communities |jstor=657761 |journal=Theory and Society |volume=19 |issue=1 |pages=18–19|doi=10.1007/BF00148452 |s2cid=141338548 }} Without making any changes in the national institutions, he believed that even reorganizing the working classes would bring great benefits. So he opposed the views of radicals seeking to change in the public mentality by expanding voting rights.{{Cite book |title=Sosyalizmin öncülerinden Robert Owen: Yaşamı, öğretisi, eylemi |trans-title=Robert Owen, one of the pioneers of socialism: His life, teachings, actions |language=tr |last=Aybay |first=Rona |publisher=YKY |year=2005 |location=İstanbul}}

Owen's work at New Lanark continued to have significance in Britain and continental Europe. He was a "pioneer in factory reform, the father of distributive co-operation, and the founder of nursery schools". His schemes for educating his workers included opening an Institute for the Formation of Character at New Lanark in 1818. This and other programmes at New Lanark provided free education from infancy to adulthood. In addition, he zealously supported factory legislation that culminated in the Cotton Mills and Factories Act 1819. Owen also had interviews and communications with leading members of the British government, including its premier, Robert Banks Jenkinson, Lord Liverpool. He also met many of the rulers and leading statesmen of Europe.{{Cite web |first=Douglas |last=Dowd |title=Robert Owen: British Social Reformer |publisher=Encyclopedia Britannica |url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Robert-Owen |access-date=30 August 2018}}{{Cite news |title=Robert Owen |newspaper=The Economist |url=https://www.economist.com/news/2008/10/31/robert-owen |date=31 October 2008 |access-date=30 August 2018}}

Owen's biggest success was in support of youth education and early child care.{{cn|date=June 2024}} As a pioneer in Britain, notably Scotland, Owen provided an alternative to the "normal authoritarian approach to child education"., Harrison, "Robert Owen's Quest for the New Moral World in America", Robert Owen's American Legacy, p. 40. Supporters of the methods argued that the manners of children brought up under his system were more graceful, genial and unconstrained; health, plenty and contentment prevailed; drunkenness was almost unknown and illegitimacy extremely rare. Owen's relations with his workers remained excellent and operations at the mill proceeded in a smooth, regular and commercially successful way.

Perhaps one of Robert Owen's most memorable ideas was his silent monitor method. Owen was opposed to common corporal punishment; therefore, to have some form of discipline he developed the "silent monitor". In his mills, he would hang a four-sided block each displaying a different colour representing the behaviour of the employee.

Owen adopted new principles to raise the standard of goods his workers produced. A cube with faces painted in different colours was installed above each machinist's workplace. The colour of the face showed to all who saw it the quality and quantity of goods the worker completed. The intention was to encourage workers to do their best. Although it was no great incentive in itself, conditions at New Lanark for workers and their families were idyllic for the time.

Owen raised the demand for an eight-hour day in 1810 and set about instituting the policy at New Lanark. By 1817 he had formulated the goal of an eight-hour working day with the slogan "eight hours labour, eight hours recreation, eight hours rest".{{Cite web |first=Marguerite |last=Ward |publisher=CNBC |date=3 May 2017 |url=https://www.cnbc.com/2017/05/03/how-the-8-hour-workday-changed-how-americans-work.html |title=A brief history of the 8-hour workday, which changed how Americans work |access-date=30 August 2018}}

In 1813 Owen authored and published A New View of Society, or Essays on the Principle of the Formation of the Human Character, the first of four essays he wrote to explain the principles behind his philosophy of socialistic reform.{{Cite book |editor-first=Linda C. |editor-last=Gugin |editor2-first=James E. |editor2-last=St. Clair |title=Indiana's 200: The People Who Shaped the Hoosier State |publisher=Indiana Historical Society Press |year=2015 |location=Indianapolis |pages=269–70 |isbn =978-0-87195-387-2}} In this he writes:

{{Blockquote|text=... the present arrangement of society is the most anti-social, impolitic, and irrational that can be devised; that under its influence all the superior and valuable qualities of the human race are repressed from infancy, and that the most unnatural means are used to bring out the most injurious propensities ...}}

Owen had originally been a follower of the classical liberal, utilitarian Jeremy Bentham, who believed that free markets and laissez-faire, in particular the right of workers to move and choose their employers, would release workers from the excessive power of capitalists. However, Owen developed his own, pro-socialist outlook. In addition, Owen as a deist, criticised organised religion, including the Church of England, and developed a belief system of his own.{{Cite journal |author=Ryan Rokicki |title=Science in Utopia: New Harmony's Naturalistic Legacy |journal=Traces of Indiana and Midwestern History |volume=26 |issue=2 |page=52 |publisher=Indiana Historical Society |location=Indianapolis |date=Spring 2014}}

File:Robert Owen Statue, Balloon Street, Manchester.jpg, in front of The Co-operative Bank]]

Owen embraced socialism in 1817, a turning point in his life, in which he pursued a "New View of Society". He outlined his position in a report to the committee of the House of Commons on the country's Poor Laws.{{Cite web |url=http://la.utexas.edu/users/hcleaver/368/368owenrptcom.html |title=To the Chairman of The Committee on the Nation's Poor Laws |last=Owen |first=Robert |date=12 March 1817 |website= |via=University of Texas |access-date=4 December 2021 |quote=Human labour, hitherto the great source of wealth in nations, being thus diminished in value at the rate of not less than from two to three millions sterling per week in Great Britain alone, that sum, or whatever more or less it may be, has consequently been withdrawn from the circulation of the country, and this has necessarily been the means by which the farmer, tradesman, manufacturer, and merchant, have been so greatly impoverished. A little reflection will show that the working classes have now no adequate means of contending with mechanical power; one of three results must therefore ensue: 1. The use of mechanism must be greatly diminished; or, 2. Millions of human beings must be starved, to permit its existence to the present extent; or, 3. Advantageous occupation must be found for the poor and unemployed working classes, to whose labour mechanism must be rendered subservient, instead of being applied, as at present, to supersede it. |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210516182501/http://la.utexas.edu/users/hcleaver/368/368owenrptcom.html |archive-date=16 May 2021 |url-status=dead}} As misery and trade stagnation after the Napoleonic Wars drew national attention, the government called on Owen for advice on how to alleviate the industrial concerns. Although he ascribed the immediate misery to the wars, he saw it as the underlying cause of competition of human labour with machinery and recommended setting up self-sufficient communities.

Owen appealed to the self-interest of capitalists, pointing out that just as machines need proper care and treatment to guarantee they work smoothly and efficiently, so do humans.{{cite book |title=The Selected Works of Robert Owen |volume=I |date=2021 |publisher=Taylor & Francis |page=28}}

Owen proposed that communities of some 1,200 people should settle on land from {{convert|1000|to|1500|acre|ha|0}}, all living in one building with a public kitchen and dining halls. (The proposed size may have been influenced by the size of the village of New Lanark.) Owen also proposed that each family have its private apartment and the responsibility for the care of its children up to the age of three. Thereafter children would be raised by the community, but their parents would have access to them at mealtimes and on other occasions. Owen further suggested that such communities be established by individuals, parishes, counties, or other governmental units. In each case, there would be effective supervision by qualified persons. Work and enjoyment of its results should be experienced communally. Owen believed his idea would be the best way to reorganise society in general, and called his vision the "New Moral World".

Owen's utopian model changed little in his lifetime. His developed model envisaged an association of 500–3,000 people as the optimum for a working community. While mainly agricultural, it would possess the best machinery, offer varied employment, and as far as possible be self-contained. Owen went on to explain that as such communities proliferated, "unions of them federatively united shall be formed in the circle of tens, hundreds and thousands", linked by a common interest.{{Cite web |first=Marjie |last=Bloy |title=Robert Owen and 'villages of co-operation' |website=A web of English History |date=4 March 2016 |url=http://www.historyhome.co.uk/peel/ruralife/owenvill.htm |access-date=30 August 2018}}

Owen grew to be known as a utopian socialist and his works are considered to reflect this attitude. Although he could be considered a member of the bourgeoisie his relationship with this class was often complicated. He fought to pass legislation that benefitted workers. He was an advocate for the Cotton Mills and Factories Act 1819. He supported socialist ideas so his views did not have an immediate impact in Britain or the United States.{{Cite web |title=Silent Monitor |url=https://www.scottishmaritimemuseum.org/3d_collections/silent-monitor/ |access-date=2022-04-15 |website=Scottish Maritime Museum |language=en-GB}}

File:Robert Owen's tomb, Newtown.jpg, Powys. The Art Nouveau railings were a 1902 addition]]

In 1817, Owen publicly claimed that all religions were false.{{Cite book |author=Richard William Leopold |title=Robert Dale Owen, A Biography |publisher=Harvard University Press |series=Harvard Historical Studies |volume=45 |year=1940 |location=Cambridge, Massachusetts |page=8 |oclc=774894}} In 1854, aged 83, Owen converted to spiritualism after a series of sittings with Maria B. Hayden, an American medium credited with introducing spiritualism to England. He made a public profession of his new faith in his publication The Rational Quarterly Review and in a pamphlet titled The Future of the Human Race; or great glorious and future revolution to be effected through the agency of departed spirits of good and superior men and women.

Owen claimed to have had medium contact with the spirits of Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and others. He explained that the purpose of these was to change "the present, false, disunited and miserable state of human existence, for a true, united and happy state... to prepare the world for universal peace, and to infuse into all the spirit of charity, forbearance and love."{{Cite book |author=Frank Podmore |title=Robert Owen: A Biography |volume=II |pages=604–5}}

Spiritualists claimed after Owen's death that his spirit had dictated to the medium Emma Hardinge Britten in 1871 the "Seven Principles of Spiritualism", used by their National Union as "the basis of its religious philosophy".{{Cite web |url=http://www.snui.org/index.php?act=viewDoc&docId=9 |title=History of Spiritualism |publisher=SNU international |access-date=30 August 2017}}

Owen was a reformer, philanthropist, community builder, and spiritualist who spent his life seeking to improve the lives of others. An advocate of the working class, he improved working conditions for factory workers, which he demonstrated at New Lanark, Scotland, became a leader in trade unionism, promoted social equality through his experimental Utopian communities, and supported the passage of child labour laws and free education for children. In these reforms he was ahead of his time. He envisioned a communal society that others could consider and apply as they wished.Harrison, "Robert Owen's Quest for the New Moral World in America," in Robert Owen's American Legacy, p. 41. In Revolution in the Mind and Practice of the Human Race (1849), he went on to say that character is formed by a combination of Nature or God and the circumstances of the individual's experience.{{Cite book |author=Robert Owen |title=Revolution in the Mind and Practice of the Human Race, or, The Coming Change from Irrationality to Rationality |publisher=Effingham Wilson |year=1849 |location=London |pages=1 & 9 |oclc=11756751}} Citing beneficial results at New Lanark, Scotland, during 30 years of work there, Owen concluded that a person's "character is not made by, but for the individual,"Owen, Revolution in the Mind and Practice of the Human Race, p. 29. See also: Harrison, "Robert Owen's Quest for the New Moral World in America," in Robert Owen's American Legacy, p. 38. and that nature and society are responsible for each person's character and conduct.Owen, Revolution in the Mind and Practice of the Human Race, p. 59.

Owen's agitation for social change, along with the work of the Owenites and his children, helped to bring lasting social reforms in women's and workers' rights, establish free public libraries and museums, child care and public, co-educational schools, and pre-Marxian communism, and develop the Co-operative and trade union movements. New Harmony, Indiana, and New Lanark, Scotland, two towns with which he is closely associated, remain as reminders of his efforts.Branigin, "Robert Owen's New Harmony" in Robert Owen's American Legacy, pp. 21–23.

Owen's legacy of public service continued with his four sons, Robert Dale, William, David Dale, and Richard Dale, and his daughter, Jane, who followed him to America to live in New Harmony, Indiana:

• Robert Dale Owen (1801–1877), an able exponent of his father's doctrines, managed the New Harmony community after his father returned to Britain in 1825. He wrote articles and co-edited with Frances Wright the New-Harmony Gazette in the late 1820s in Indiana and the Free Enquirer in the 1830s in New York City. Owen returned to New Harmony in 1833 and became active in Indiana politics. He was elected to the Indiana House of Representatives (1836–1839 and 1851–1853) and U.S. House of Representatives (1843–1847) and was appointed chargé d'affaires in Naples in 1853–1858. While serving as a member of Congress, he drafted and helped to secure passage of a bill founding the Smithsonian Institution in 1846. He was elected a delegate to the Indiana Constitutional Convention in 1850,Estabrook, pp. 72–74.{{Cite web |title=Owen, Robert Dale (1801–1877) |work=Biographical Directory of the United States Congress |publisher=U.S. Congress |url=http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=O000152 |access-date=12 September 2017}} and argued in support of widows and married women's property and divorce rights. He also favoured legislation for Indiana's tax-supported public school system. Like his father, he believed in spiritualism, authoring two books on the subject: Footfalls on the Boundary of Another World (1859) and The Debatable Land Between this World and the Next (1872).Pancoast and Lincoln, p. 100.
• William Owen (1802–1842) moved to the United States with his father in 1824. His business skill, notably his knowledge of cotton goods manufacturing, allowed him to remain at New Harmony after his father returned to Scotland, and serve as an adviser to the community. He organised New Harmony's Thespian Society in 1827 but died of unknown causes at the age of 40.Estabrook, p. 80.Leopold, p. 21.
• Jane Dale Owen Fauntleroy (1805–1861) arrived in the United States in 1833 and settled in New Harmony. She was a musician and educator who set up a school in her home. In 1835 she married Robert Henry Fauntleroy, a civil engineer from Virginia living in New Harmony.Estabrook, pp. 82–83.{{Cite book |first1=Elinor |last1=Pancoast |first2=Anne E. |last2=Lincoln |title=The Incorrigible Idealist: Robert Dale Owen in America |publisher=Principia Press |date=1940 |location=Bloomington, Indiana |page=25 |oclc=2000563}}{{Cite journal |author=Josephine Mirabella Elliott |title=The Owen Family Papers |journal=Indiana Magazine of History |volume=60 |issue=4 |page=343 |publisher=Indiana University |location=Bloomington |date=December 1964 |url=https://scholarworks.iu.edu/journals/index.php/imh/article/view/9072/11858 |access-date=14 September 2017}}
• David Dale Owen (1807–1860) moved to the United States in 1827 and resided at New Harmony for several years. He trained as a geologist and natural scientist and earned a medical degree. He was appointed a United States geologist in 1839. His work included geological surveys in the Midwest, more specifically the states of Indiana, Iowa, Missouri, and Arkansas, as well as Minnesota Territory. His brother Richard succeeded him as state geologist of Indiana.Estabrook, pp. 88–89.Leopold, Robert Dale Owen, A Biography, pp. 50–51.
• Richard Dale Owen (1810–1890) emigrated to the United States in 1827 and joined his siblings at New Harmony. He fought in the Mexican–American War in 1847, taught natural science at Western Military Institute in Tennessee from 1849 to 1859, and earned a medical degree in 1858. During the American Civil War he was a colonel in the Union army and served as a commandant of Camp Morton, a prisoner-of-war camp for Confederate soldiers at Indianapolis, Indiana. After the war, Owen served as Indiana's second state geologist. In addition, he was a professor at Indiana University and chaired its natural science department from 1864 to 1879. He helped plan Purdue University and was appointed its first president in 1872–1874, but resigned before its classes began and resumed teaching at Indiana University. He spent his retirement years on research and writing.Elliott, pp. 343–344.Estabrook, pp. 94–95.

File:RobertOwenKensalGreen01.jpg, London]]

• A simple slate tomb for Owen was installed in St Mary's Churchyard in Newtown. In 1902 the co-operative movement erected Art Nouveau railings around the tomb as a monument to him.
• In 1956 a bronze statue of Owen by Gilbert Bayes was installed in a small garden dedicated to Owen in Newtown.{{Cite web |date=2020-06-26 |title=Robert Owen (1771-1858) by Gilbert Bayes (1872-1953) |url=https://victorianweb.org/sculpture/bayes/76.html |access-date=2023-03-22 |website=Victorian Web}}
• The Welsh people donated a bust of Owen by Welsh sculptor Sir William Goscombe John to the International Labour Office library in Geneva, Switzerland.
• In 1994 the Co-operative Bank installed a copy of the Newtown statue in front of its headquarters on Balloon Street, Manchester.{{Cite news |last=Coyle |first=Simon |date=2015-04-14 |title=Manchester public art: Robert Owen on the corner of Balloon Street and Corporation Street |language=en |website=Manchester Evening News |url=https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/nostalgia/manchester-public-art-robert-owen-8816468 |access-date=2023-03-22}}

Owen's project was considered unachievable because he did not establish a guideline that stipulated the administration of properties and the conditions of memberships. As a result, some critics found his plans unsatisfactory and ineffective because the overpopulation and shortage of supply created antagonism within the community.{{Cite journal |last=Feller |first=Daniel |date=1998 |title=The Spirit Of Improvement: The America of William Maclure and Robert Owen |jstor=27792086 |journal=Indiana Magazine of History |volume=94 |issue=2 |pages=92–93}} Owen's opponents view him as a dictator, and a blasphemer of Christianity because he rejected sacred beliefs and defied anyone who differed from his views.{{Cite journal |last1=Madden |first1=Edward H. |last2=Madden |first2=Dennis W. |date=1982 |title=The Great Debate: Alexander Campbell vs. Robert Owen |jstor=40319966 |journal=Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society |volume=18 |issue=3 |page=221}} Owen perceived religion as a source of fear and ignorance. Therefore, people were unable to think rationally if they stayed attached to "fallacious testimonies" of religion.

Other notable critics of Owen include Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, even though they viewed his work as a precursor to their own.{{cite book |chapter-url=http://marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch03.htm |chapter=Critical-Utopian Socialism and Communism |title=The Communist Manifesto |last1=Marx |first1=Karl |last2=Engels |first2=Friedrich |publisher=Marxists Internet Archive |date=February 1848 |access-date=4 December 2021 |quote=The Socialist and Communist systems, properly so called, those of Saint-Simon, Fourier, Owen, and others, spring into existence in the early undeveloped period, described above, of the struggle between proletariat and bourgeoisie ... although the originators of these systems were, in many respects, revolutionary, their disciples have, in every case, formed mere reactionary sects ... |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20010707033317/http://marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch03.htm |archive-date=7 July 2001 |url-status=dead}} They recognized in Owen the important understanding, developed by Marx in Capital, that it is the working class that is responsible for creating the unparalleled wealth in capitalist societies.{{cite book |last=Owen |first=Robert |title=The revolution in the mind and practice}}{{fcn|date=March 2024}} Similarly, Owen also recognized that under the existing economic system, the working class did not automatically receive the benefits of that newly created wealth. Marx and Engels, differentiated, however, their scientific conception of socialism from Owen's societies.{{Cite journal |last=Paden |first=Roger |date=2002 |jstor=20718467 |title=Marx's Critique of the Utopian Socialists |journal=Utopian Studies |volume=13 |issue=2 |pages=67–91}} They argued that Owen's plan, to create a model socialist utopia to coexist with contemporary society and prove its superiority over time, was insufficient to create a new society. In their view, Owen's "socialism" was utopian, since to Owen and the other utopian socialists "socialism is the expression of absolute truth, reason and justice, and has only to be discovered to conquer all the world by its power."{{Cite web |url=http://marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1880/soc-utop/ch01.htm |title=Socialism: Utopian and Scientific |last=Engels |first=Friedrich |date=1880 |website= |publisher=Marx/Engels Internet Archive |access-date=4 December 2021 |quote=The Utopians' mode of thought has for a long time governed the Socialist ideas of the 19th century, and still governs some of them. Until very recently, all French and English Socialists did homage to it. The earlier German Communism, including that of Weitling, was of the same school. To all these, Socialism is the expression of absolute truth, reason and justice, and has only to be discovered to conquer all the world by its power. And as an absolute truth is independent of time, space, and the historical development of man, it is a mere accident when and where it is discovered. With all this, absolute truth, reason, and justice are different from the founder of each different school. And as each one's special kind of absolute truth, reason, and justice is again conditioned by his subjective understanding, his conditions of existence, the measure of his knowledge and his intellectual training, there is no other ending possible in this conflict of absolute truths than that they shall be mutually exclusive of one another. Hence, from this, nothing could come but a kind of eclectic, average Socialism, which, has up to the present time dominated the minds of most of the socialist workers in France and England ... a mish-mash allowing of the most manifold shades of opinion: a mishmash of such critical statements, economic theories, pictures of future society by the founders of different sects, as excite a minimum of opposition; a mish-mash which is the more easily brewed the more definite sharp edges of the individual constituents are rubbed down in the stream of the debate, like rounded pebbles in a brook. |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20001017160533/http://marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1880/soc-utop/ch01.htm |archive-date=17 October 2000 |url-status=dead}} Marx and Engels believed that the overthrow of the capitalist system could only occur once the working class was organized into a revolutionary socialist political party of the working class that was completely independent of all capitalist class influence, whereas the utopians sought the assistance and the co-operation of the capitalists to achieve the transition to socialism.

• A New View of Society: Or, Essays on the Formation of Human Character, and the Application of the Principle to Practice (London, 1813). Retitled, A New View of Society: Or, Essays on the Formation of Human Character Preparatory to the Development of a Plan for Gradually Ameliorating the Condition of Mankind, for the second edition, 1816
• Observations on the Effect of the Manufacturing System. London, 1815
• Report to the Committee of the Association for the Relief of the Manufacturing and Labouring Poor (1817)Harrison, "Robert Owen's Quest for the New Moral World in America," in Robert Owen's American Legacy, p. 32.
• Two Memorials on Behalf of the Working Classes (London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, 1818){{Cite book |author=Robert Owen |title=Two Memorials Behalf of the Working Classes |publisher=Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown |year=1818 |location=London |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=sUNBAAAAYAAJ}}
• An Address to the Master Manufacturers of Great Britain: On the Present Existing Evils in the Manufacturing System (Bolton, 1819)
• Report to the County of Lanark of a Plan for relieving Public Distress (Glasgow: Glasgow University Press, 1821)
• An Explanation of the Cause of Distress which pervades the civilised parts of the world (London and Paris, 1823)
• An Address to All Classes in the State. London, 1832
• The Revolution in the Mind and Practice of the Human Race. London, 1849

Collected works:

• [https://archive.org/details/owennewviewsocietyandotherwritings A New View of Society and Other Writings], introduction by G. D. H. Cole. London and New York: J. M. Dent & Sons, E. P. Dutton and Co., 1927
• A New View of Society and Other Writings, G. Claeys, ed. London and New York: Penguin Books, 1991
• The Selected Works of Robert Owen, G. Claeys, ed., 4 vols. London: Pickering and Chatto, 1993

Archival collections:

• Robert Owen Collection, National Co-operative Archive, United Kingdom.The collection includes papers and letters as well as pamphlets and books. See {{Cite web |url=http://archive.co-op.ac.uk/ |title=National Co-operative Archive |publisher=Archive.co-op.ac.uk |access-date=8 September 2017 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://archive.today/20061003041336/http://archive.co-op.ac.uk/ |archive-date=3 October 2006 }}
• New Harmony, Indiana, Collection, 1814–1884, 1920, 1964, Indiana Historical Society, Indianapolis, Indiana, United StatesThe collection includes a letter describing Owen's views and documents related to the New Harmony community. See {{Cite web |title=New Harmony Collection, 1814–1884, Collection Guide |publisher=Indiana Historical Society |url=http://www.indianahistory.org/our-collections/collection-guides/new-harmony-collection-1814-1884.pdf |access-date=8 September 2017 |archive-date=29 July 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160729053341/http://www.indianahistory.org/our-collections/collection-guides/new-harmony-collection-1814-1884.pdf |url-status=dead}}
• New Harmony Series III Collection, Workingmen's Institute, New Harmony, Indiana, United StatesBound records of the New Harmony community. See {{Cite web |title=New Harmony Series II |date= 31 March 2012 |publisher= Workingmen's Institute |url=http://workingmensinstitute.org/archives-3/ |access-date=8 September 2017}}
• Owen family collection, 1826–1967, bulk 1830–1890, Indiana University Archives, Bloomington, Indiana, United StatesThe collection includes the correspondence, speeches, and publications of Robert Owens and his descendants. See {{Cite web |title=Owen family collection, 1826-1967, bulk 1830-1890 |publisher= Archives Online at Indiana University |url=http://purl.dlib.indiana.edu/iudl/findingaids/archives/InU-Ar-VAA1364 |access-date=30 April 2020}}

• Cincinnati Time Store
• José María Arizmendiarrieta
• Labour voucher
• List of Owenite communities in the United States
• Owenstown
• Owenism
• William King

{{Reflist|30em|refs=

• {{Cite journal |author=Donald E. Pitzer |title=Why New Harmony is World Famous |journal=Traces of Indiana and Midwestern History |volume=26 |issue=2 |page=12 |publisher=Indiana Historical Society |location=Indianapolis |date=Spring 2014}}
• {{Cite book |author=Lewis Spence |title=Encyclopedia of Occultism and Parapsychology |publisher=Kessinger Publishing Company |year=2003 |page=679}}

}}

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• {{Cite journal |last1=Bryden |first1=Amanda S. |first2=Connie A. |last2=Weinzapfel |title=Editors' Page: 'That Wonder of the West' |journal=Traces of Indiana and Midwestern History |volume=26 |issue=2 |pages=2–3| publisher=Indiana Historical Society |location=Indianapolis |date =Spring 2014}}
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• {{Cite journal |author=Elliott, Josephine Mirabella |title=The Owen Family Papers |journal=Indiana Magazine of History |volume=60 |issue=4 |pages=331–52 |publisher=Indiana University |location=Bloomington |date=December 1964 |url=https://scholarworks.iu.edu/journals/index.php/imh/article/view/9072/11858 |access-date=14 September 2017}}
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• {{Cite book |author=Podmore, Frank |title=Robert Owen: A Biography Vol II |publisher=D. Appleton and Company |year=1907 |location=New York |url=https://archive.org/details/robertowenabiog01podmgoog}}
• {{Cite web |author=Rees, Sir James Frederick |title=Owen, Robert (1771–1858), Utopian Socialist |work=Dictionary of Welsh Biography | publisher=National Library of Wales |date=2007 |url=http://wbo.llgc.org.uk/en/s-OWEN-ROB-1771.html |access-date=30 August 2017}} (online version)
• {{Cite web |title=Robert Owen Blue Plaque |date=6 February 2016 |url=http://www.fotolibra.com/gallery/1305183/robert-owen-blue-plaque/?search_hash=08d9e595273a2a1b7220a0782576815e&search_offset=0&search_limit=100&search_sort_by= |access-date=29 August 2017 |archive-date=1 February 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200201133421/https://www.fotolibra.com/gallery/1305183/robert-owen-blue-plaque/?search_hash=08d9e595273a2a1b7220a0782576815e&search_offset=0&search_limit=100&search_sort_by= |url-status=dead}}
• {{Cite web |title=Robert Owen Timeline |publisher=Robert Owen Museum |date=2008 |url=http://robert-owen-museum.org.uk/time_line |access-date=29 August 2017 |archive-date=10 October 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181010123944/http://robert-owen-museum.org.uk/time_line |url-status=dead}}
• {{Cite web |title=ROC–Robert Owen |publisher=National Co-operative Archive |url=http://www.archive.coop/collections/personal-papers/roc-robert-owen |access-date=8 September 2017 |archive-date=9 November 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171109023017/http://www.archive.coop/collections/personal-papers/roc-robert-owen |url-status=dead }}
• {{Cite book |author=Royle, Edward |title =Robert Owen and the Commencement of the Millennium |publisher=Manchester University Press |year=1998 |isbn=0-7190-5426-5}}
• {{Cite journal |author=Schuette, Kent |title=New Harmony, Indiana: Three Great Community Experiments |journal=Traces of Indiana and Midwestern History |volume=26 |issue=2 |pages=44–49 |publisher=Indiana Historical Society |location=Indianapolis |date=Spring 2014}}
• {{Cite book |author=Spence, Lewis |title =Encyclopedia of Occultism and Parapsychology |publisher=Kessinger Publishing Company |year=2003 |page=679}}
• {{Cite web |title=Who said this: "all strange but thee and Me" |publisher= Literature Network Forums |url=http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?t=18866 |access-date=13 July 2009}}

• {{Cite book |author=Owen, Robert |url=https://archive.org/details/lifeofrobertowen00owenuoft |title=The Life of Robert Owen |publisher=G. Bell and Sons |location=London |year=1920}}

• A. J. Booth, [https://archive.org/details/robertowenfound00bootgoog Robert Owen, the Founder of Socialism in England] (London, 1869)
• G. D. H. Cole, [https://archive.org/download/Cole1930TheLifeOfRobertOwen/Cole_1930_The_Life_of_Robert_Owen.pdf Life of Robert Owen]. London, Ernest Benn Ltd., 1925; second edition Macmillan, 1930
• Lloyd Jones. [https://archive.org/details/lifetimesandlab00jonegoog The Life, Times, and Labours of Robert Owen]. London, 1889
• A. L. Morton, [https://archive.org/details/LifeIdeasRobertOwen The Life and Ideas of Robert Owen]. New York, International Publishers, 1969
• W. H. Oliver, "Robert Owen and the English Working-Class Movements", History Today (November 1958) 8–11, pp. 787–796
• F. A. Packard, [https://archive.org/details/lifeofrobertowen00pack Life of Robert Owen]. Philadelphia: Ashmead & Evans, 1866
• Frank Podmore, [https://archive.org/details/robertowenbiogra01podm Robert Owen: A Biography]. London: Hutchinson and Company, 1906
• David Santilli, Life of the Mill Man. London, B. T. Batsford Ltd, 1987
• William Lucas Sargant, [https://archive.org/details/robertowenandhi00sarggoog Robert Owen and his social philosophy ]. London, 1860
• Richard Tames, Radicals, Railways & Reform. London, B. T. Batsford Ltd, 1986

• Arthur Bestor, Backwoods Utopias. The University of Pennsylvania Press, 1950, 2nd edition, 1970
• John Butt (ed). [https://archive.org/details/robertowenaspectslifework Robert Owen: Aspects of his Life and Work]. Humanities Press, 1971
• {{Cite journal |first1=J. |last1=Butt |first2=I. |last2=Donnachie |first3=J. R. |last3=Hume |title=Robert Owen of New Lanark (1771-1858 |journal=Industrial Archaeology |date=May 1971 |volume=8 |number=2}}
• Gregory Claeys, Citizens and Saints. Politics and Anti-Politics in Early British Socialism. Cambridge University Press, 1989
• Gregory Claeys, Machinery, Money and the Millennium: From Moral Economy to Socialism 1815–1860. Princeton University Press, 1987
• R. E. Davies, [https://archive.org/details/lifeofrobertowen00daviuoft The Life of Robert Owen, Philanthropist and Social Reformer, An Appreciation]. Robert Sutton, 1907
• R. E. Davis and F. J. O'Hagan, Robert Owen. London: Continuum Press, 2010
• I. Donnachie, Robert Owen. Owen of New Lanark and New Harmony. 2000
• John F. C. Harrison, Robert Owen and the Owenites in Britain and America: Quest for the New Moral World. New York, 1969
• Alexander Herzen, My Past and Thoughts (University of California Press, 1982). (One chapter is devoted to Owen.)
• G. J. Holyoake, [https://archive.org/details/cu31924092563570 The History of Co-operation in England: Its Literature and Its Advocates] V. 1. London, 1906
• G. J. Holyoake, The History of Co-operation in England: Its Literature and Its Advocates V. 2. London, 1906
• The National Library of Wales, [https://archive.org/details/bibliographyofro00natirich A Bibliography of Robert Owen, The Socialist]. 1914
• {{Cite book |editor=Pollard, Sidney |editor2=John Salt |title=Robert Owen, Prophet of the Poor; Essays in Honor of the Two Hundredth Anniversary of His Birth |publisher=Bucknell University Press |edition=1st American |year=1971 |location=Lewisburg, PA |isbn =0838779522}}
• Chris Rogers, "Robert Owen, utopian socialism and social transformation." Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences 54.4 (2018): 256-271. [https://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/113052/1/WRAP-Robert-Owen-utopian-socialism-transformation-Rogers-2018.pdf online].
• O. Siméon, [https://www.palgrave.com/de/book/9783319642260 Robert Owen's Experiment at New Lanark. From Paternalism to Socialism]. Palgrave Macmillan, 2017
• Ophélie, Siméon. "Robert Owen: The Father of British Socialism?" Books and Ideas (2012). [https://shs.hal.science/halshs-01574714/file/Robert_Owen_The_Father_of_British_Social.pdf online]

{{Wikiquote|Robert Owen}}

{{Commons|Robert Owen}}

{{wikisource author}}

• [https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/economics/owen/index.htm Essays by Owen] at the Marxists Internet Archive
• [http://www.newlanark.org/robertowen.shtml Brief biography at the New Lanark World Heritage Site] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090531170650/http://www.newlanark.org/robertowen.shtml |date=31 May 2009}}
• [http://robert-owen-museum.org.uk/ The Robert Owen Museum], Newtown, Wales
• [https://archive.org/details/Socialist_paradise Video of Owen's wool mill]
• [http://www.cottontimes.co.uk/oweno.htm Brief biography at Cotton Times] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060207060312/http://www.cottontimes.co.uk/oweno.htm |date=7 February 2006}}
• [http://faculty.evansville.edu/ck6/bstud/robtowen.html "Robert Owen (1771-1858) social reformer, founder of New Harmony"], University of Evansville, Indiana
• [http://www.historyhome.co.uk/peel/economic/owencoop.htm "Robert Owen and the Co-operative movement"]
• [http://www.historyguide.org/intellect/owen.html Brief biography at The History Guide]
• [http://www.age-of-the-sage.org/historical/biography/robert_owen.html Brief biography at age-of-the-sage.org]
• [https://www.pbs.org/heavenonearth/leaders_thinkers.html Heaven On Earth: The Rise and Fall of Socialism at PBS] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141019012734/http://www.pbs.org/heavenonearth/leaders_thinkers.html |date=19 October 2014 }} {dead link 2021-02-22}
• {{Cite EB1911|wstitle=Owen, Robert |short=x}}
• {{Cite NIE|wstitle=Owen, Robert|year=1905 |short=x}}

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