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Self Supporting Town: by - Robert Owen

Robert Owen was a Welsh social reformer who created cooperative communities to improve conditions for workers. At New Lanark, Scotland, he eliminated child labor, improved working conditions, instituted an 8-hour workday, and built quality housing and schools for workers. However, his later utopian community of New Harmony in Indiana failed due to disputes over politics, religion, and social divisions among residents.

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Abhinav Bhardwaj
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119 views6 pages

Self Supporting Town: by - Robert Owen

Robert Owen was a Welsh social reformer who created cooperative communities to improve conditions for workers. At New Lanark, Scotland, he eliminated child labor, improved working conditions, instituted an 8-hour workday, and built quality housing and schools for workers. However, his later utopian community of New Harmony in Indiana failed due to disputes over politics, religion, and social divisions among residents.

Uploaded by

Abhinav Bhardwaj
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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SELF SUPPORTING TOWN

BY – ROBERT OWEN
INTRODUCTION
oBorn in Newtown, Wales, in 1771
oBecame one of England’s earliest proponents of socialism and the co-operative movement.
oBegan an early career as a factory manager and owner.
oKnown For: His creation of cooperative communities at New Lanark, Scotland, New Harmony,
Indiana, as well as later activism.
PHILOSOPHY
oTo form a community and set out to transform the mills.
oDetermined to eliminate child labor in the mills [so that children could be educated]
oTo improve working conditions of all workers
oOwen proposed regulations to Parilament to raise the minimum age of employment.
oAlso proposed a system in which children would have half-time education until age 12.
oOWEN RAISED THE DEMAND FOR AN EIGHT-HOUR DAY IN 1810, AND INSTITUTED THE POLICY
AT NEW LANARK. BY 1817 HE HAD FORMULATED THE GOAL OF THE EIGHT-HOUR WORKDAY
AND COINED THE SLOGAN:
“EIGHT HOURS LABOUR, EIGHT HOURS RECREATION, EIGHT HOURS REST”
Journey started from…
oNew Lanark, Scotland
oTested his social and economic ideas and he won the confidence of his workers and continued to have
great success due to the improved efficiency at the mill.
oHe argued that the ideal moral community would be a cooperatively-run agrarian and industrial village.
o So he enacted change:
• Renovated workers homes so each had two stories
• Developed systems for sanitation and garbage disposal
• Paved roads and implemented street cleaning
• Opened a free village school
oAnd it was done with funding of profit of mill.
Settlement in Indiana
o He bought the town of New Harmony, Indiana, from the
German immigrant Rappite religious sect and established a
utopian community there(1825-1828).
oHe advocated the formation of “Villages of Cooperation” in which 800 - 1,200 individuals would
work together in agriculture and factories to form one self-sustaining unity
oHouses would be grouped to share common living rooms and kitchens. Children would be
boarded in a community school so that they could be best educated, and community gardens
would surround the school. On the outskirts would lie the factory
oMost English policy makers and thinkers of the time found these communitarian proposals
idealistic and unrealistic
oAlthough New Harmony prospered at first,but the farmers, laborers and professionals soon fell to
quarreling about politics and religion.
Failures….
oDissatisfaction grew between community and divided into smaller groups, few of which ended
up being viable.
oCaste and Religion dispute among peoples.

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