History of American SocialismsNoyes, John Humphrey
History
History of American Socialisms
Noyes, John Humphrey
Communism -- United States; Socialism -- United States
In the first place the failure of his Community at New Harmony was not
the failure of the _village_ which he bought of the Rappites. That
was built of substantial brick and stone. The houses and a portion of
the population which he gathered there, remained and have continued to
be a flourishing and rather peculiar village till the present time.
Several Communities that came over from England in after-years made
New Harmony their rendezvous, either on their arrival or when they
broke up. So Macdonald, with the enthusiasm of a true Socialist, on
landing in this country in 1842 first sought out New Harmony. There he
found Josiah Warren, the apostle of Individualism, returned from his
wanderings and failures, to set up a "Time Store" in the old seat of
Socialism. We remember also, that Dr. J.R. Buchanan, the
anthropologist, was at New Harmony in 1842, when he astonished the
world with his novel experiments in Mesmerism, which Robert Dale Owen
reported in a famous letter to the _Evening Post_, and which gave
impetus and respectability to the beginnings of modern Spiritualism.
These facts and many others indicate that New Harmony continued to be
a center and refuge of Socialists and innovators long after the
failure of the Community. Notwithstanding the unpopularity of
Communism which Macdonald says he found there, it is probably a
semi-socialist village to this day, representing more or less the
spirit of Robert Owen.
In the next place, with all his failures, Owen was successful in
producing a fine family; and though he himself returned to England
after the disaster at New Harmony, he bequeathed all his children to
this country. Macdonald, writing in 1842, says: "Mr. Owen's family all
reside in New Harmony. There are four sons and one daughter; viz.,
William Owen, who is a merchant and bank director; Robert Dale Owen,
a lawyer and politician, who attends to the affairs of the Owen
Estate; David Dale Owen, a practical geologist; Richard Owen, a
practical farmer; and Mrs. Fauntleroy. The four brothers, with the
wives and families of three of them, live together in one large
mansion."
Mr. Owen in his published journal says that "his eldest son Robert
Dale Owen, after writing much that was excellent, was twice elected
member of Congress, and carried the bill for establishing the
Smithsonian Institute in Washington; that his second son, David Dale
Owen, was professor of chemistry, mineralogy and geology, and had been
employed by successive American governments as their accredited
geologist; that his third son, Major Richard Owen, was a professor in
a Kentucky Military College; and that his only daughter living in
1851, was the widow of a distinguished American officer."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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