Robert Dale Owen
Encyclopedia
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
of the socialist
Socialism
Socialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy; or a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises,...
doctrines of his father, Robert Owen
Robert Owen
Robert Owen was a Welsh social reformer and one of the founders of utopian socialism and the cooperative movement.Owen's philosophy was based on three intellectual pillars:...
, as well as a politician
Politician
A politician, political leader, or political figure is an individual who is involved in influencing public policy and decision making...
in the Democratic Party.
Biography
Born in GlasgowGlasgow
Glasgow is the largest city in Scotland and third most populous in the United Kingdom. The city is situated on the River Clyde in the country's west central lowlands...
, Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
, Owen emigrated to the United States in 1825, and helped his father create the Utopia
Utopia
Utopia is an ideal community or society possessing a perfect socio-politico-legal system. The word was imported from Greek by Sir Thomas More for his 1516 book Utopia, describing a fictional island in the Atlantic Ocean. The term has been used to describe both intentional communities that attempt...
n community of New Harmony, Indiana
New Harmony, Indiana
New Harmony is a historic town on the Wabash River in Harmony Township, Posey County, Indiana, United States. It lies north of Mount Vernon, the county seat. The population was 916 at the 2000 census. It is part of the Evansville metropolitan area. Many of the old Harmonist buildings still stand...
. After the community failed, Owen returned briefly to Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
, then moved to New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
and became the editor of the Free Enquirer, a socialistic and anti-Christian weekly, which he ran with Frances Wright
Frances Wright
Frances Wright also widely known as Fanny Wright, was a Scottish-born lecturer, writer, freethinker, feminist, abolitionist, and social reformer, who became a U. S. citizen in 1825...
from 1828 to 1832. Owen's Moral Physiology, published in 1830 or 1831, was the first book to advocate birth control in the United States (specifically, coitus interruptus
Coitus interruptus
Coitus interruptus, also known as the rejected sexual intercourse, withdrawal or pull-out method, is a method of birth-control in which a man, during intercourse withdraws his penis from a woman's vagina prior to ejaculation...
). Along with Fanny Wright
Frances Wright
Frances Wright also widely known as Fanny Wright, was a Scottish-born lecturer, writer, freethinker, feminist, abolitionist, and social reformer, who became a U. S. citizen in 1825...
, he was an intellectual leader of the Working Men's Party
Working Men's Party
The Working Men's Party, nicknamed the "Workies", founded in 1828, was the first labor union in the United States, located in Philadelphia. They promoted free public education as a way out of poverty. They also demanded a 10–11-hour work period and universal male suffrage. The Working Men's Party...
. In contrast to many other Democrats of the era, Owen and Wright were opposed to slavery
Slavery
Slavery is a system under which people are treated as property to be bought and sold, and are forced to work. Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand compensation...
, though their artisan radicalism distanced them from the leading abolitionists
Abolitionism
Abolitionism is a movement to end slavery.In western Europe and the Americas abolitionism was a movement to end the slave trade and set slaves free. At the behest of Dominican priest Bartolomé de las Casas who was shocked at the treatment of natives in the New World, Spain enacted the first...
of the time. (Lott, 129)
He returned 1833 to New Harmony, Indiana, and served in the Indiana House of Representatives
Indiana House of Representatives
The Indiana House of Representatives is the lower house of the Indiana General Assembly, the state legislature of the U.S. state of Indiana. The House is composed of 100 members representing an equal number of constituent districts. House members serve two-year terms without term limits...
twice (1835–1838; 1851–1853). There he distinguished himself by securing appropriations for the public school system. After two unsuccessful campaigns, he was elected to the United States House of Representatives
United States House of Representatives
The United States House of Representatives is one of the two Houses of the United States Congress, the bicameral legislature which also includes the Senate.The composition and powers of the House are established in Article One of the Constitution...
in 1842, and served from 1843 to 1847. While in Washington, he drafted the bill
Bill (proposed law)
A bill is a proposed law under consideration by a legislature. A bill does not become law until it is passed by the legislature and, in most cases, approved by the executive. Once a bill has been enacted into law, it is called an act or a statute....
for the founding of the Smithsonian Institution
Smithsonian Institution
The Smithsonian Institution is an educational and research institute and associated museum complex, administered and funded by the government of the United States and by funds from its endowment, contributions, and profits from its retail operations, concessions, licensing activities, and magazines...
.
Owen was elected a member of the Indiana Constitutional Convention in 1850, and was instrumental in securing to widows and married women control of their property, and the adoption of a common free school system. He later succeeded in passing a state law giving greater freedom in divorce
Divorce
Divorce is the final termination of a marital union, canceling the legal duties and responsibilities of marriage and dissolving the bonds of matrimony between the parties...
.
In 1853, Franklin Pierce
Franklin Pierce
Franklin Pierce was the 14th President of the United States and is the only President from New Hampshire. Pierce was a Democrat and a "doughface" who served in the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate. Pierce took part in the Mexican-American War and became a brigadier general in the Army...
appointed Owen as United States minister to the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies
Kingdom of the Two Sicilies
The Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, commonly known as the Two Sicilies even before formally coming into being, was the largest and wealthiest of the Italian states before Italian unification...
at Naples
Naples
Naples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples...
. After leaving that post in 1858, Owen retired from political life, but remained an active intellectual.
During the Civil War, he served in the Ordnance Commission and the Freedmen's Bureau. He wrote an open letter to President Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. He successfully led his country through a great constitutional, military and moral crisis – the American Civil War – preserving the Union, while ending slavery, and...
on September 7, 1862, urging him to end slavery
Slavery
Slavery is a system under which people are treated as property to be bought and sold, and are forced to work. Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand compensation...
on moral grounds. A few days later the Emancipation Proclamation
Emancipation Proclamation
The Emancipation Proclamation is an executive order issued by United States President Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863, during the American Civil War using his war powers. It proclaimed the freedom of 3.1 million of the nation's 4 million slaves, and immediately freed 50,000 of them, with nearly...
was read to the Cabinet. In March 1865, he submitted a radical initial draft of the Fourteenth Amendment
Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was adopted on July 9, 1868, as one of the Reconstruction Amendments.Its Citizenship Clause provides a broad definition of citizenship that overruled the Dred Scott v...
that was eventually modified into the final draft.
He was a strong believer in Spiritualism (despite admitting having been duped into believing in a spirit named "Katie King"
Katie King (spirit)
Katie King was the name given by Spiritualists in the 1870s to what they believed to be a materialized spirit. The question of whether the spirit was real or a fraud was a notable public controversy of the mid-1870s....
) and was the author of two well-known books on the subject: Footfalls on the Boundary of Another World (1859) and The Debatable Land Between this World and the Next (1872).
Owen died at his summer home in Lake George, New York
Lake George (town), New York
Lake George is a town in Warren County, New York, USA. The population was 3,578 at the 2000 census. The town is named after the lake, Lake George. Within the town is a village also named Lake George. The town is part of the Glens Falls Metropolitan Statistical Area.- History :The lake was...
, and was buried in New Harmony, Indiana. The town of Dale, Indiana
Dale, Indiana
Dale is a town in Carter Township, Spencer County, Indiana, United States. The population was 1,593 at the 2010 census. Founded in 1843 and initially called Elizabeth, it was renamed after Robert Dale Owen of New Harmony, the town's congressman at the time....
was named after him. In 1911 , the women of Indiana dedicated a memorial to Robert Dale Owen
Robert Dale Owen Memorial
Robert Dale Owen Memorial is a public artwork located at the south entrance of the Indiana Statehouse along Washington Street in Indianapolis, Indiana. The memorial was dedicated to the state of Indiana in 1911 in honor of the politician Robert Dale Owen . The bronze portrait bust by Indiana artist...
on the lawn of the Indiana Statehouse.