Robert Owen: Socialist, Secularist, Spiritualist

Public Education’s Foundation in Socialism

Robert Owen, a Scottish factory-owner turned political philosopher, came to the U.S. in 1824 to try to convince the American people of the importance of government-run education. He also wanted to abolish marriage, the family, religion, and private property. He succeeded in convincing people to turn over education to the government, but was eventually blacklisted for his more blatantly non-Christian views.

Born in 1771 in Wales, Owen was a man ahead of his time and has been given the appellation “Father of British Socialism”^[1]. In reality, Owen should be given credit as the “Father of Modern Socialism”. He started a socialist community in Scotland before Karl Marx was even born.^[2] As early as 1840, Charles Southwell, an Owenite Socialist Missionary, states “Socialism is a new science of society, and was first propounded to the world by Robert Owen, of New Lanark, in the year 1812.”^[3]

In his “History of American Socialisms”, John Humphrey Noyes attributes the earliest instance of socialism in the United States to Robert Owen. Morris Hillquit, founder and leader of the Socialist Party of America, makes the important point in “History of Socialism in the United States” that the sectarian utopian communities like the Shakers and Rappites were only communist by appearance; it was not the foundation of the society. Robert Owen, on the other hand, was the first to establish a community in the United States (New Harmony) and in the world (New Lanark) that was communist at its core.^[4]

Most damning of all, Friedrich Engels published regularly in periodicals of Robert Owen before publishing The Communist Manifesto with co-author Karl Marx.

Robert Owen was the first socialist. He was the first to bring socialist ideas to the United States. And his work is the foundation for the modern public education system.

New Lanark: The Birthplace of Owen’s Reforms

Owen started to make a name for himself in Manchester, England. He became a member of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society, where he gave lectures on his theories of educational reform.^[5] In 1799, Owen convinced his business partners to purchase the mills of David Dale in New Lanark, Scotland. Owen simultaneously courted and eventually married Dale’s daughter, Caroline (Ann) Dale.

Although initially frustrated in his attempted reforms of the community at New Lanark, Owen eventually won the trust of his workers and found more agreeable investors to help with the project. In 1806, the United States placed an embargo on the export of raw cotton, forcing Owen to halt the operation of his cotton mills.^[6] Nevertheless, Owen kept paying salaries to his workers, which won their trust. In 1812, Owen published Statement Regarding the New Lanark Establishment, and in 1813 he published the first two essays of A New View of Society. These publications contained details about his organization of the community at New Lanark and his general philosophy of social reform. Robert Owen thereby launched his career as a social reformer. When Owen’s business partners demanded the sale of the mills, he repurchased them with the aid of new investors: James Mill (father of John Stuart Mill), William Allen, and Jeremy Bentham, three able businessmen and social reformers.^[7]

Jeremy Bentham’s biographer, John Bowring, writes the following:

On the whole it was a fortunate investment; and his [Bentham’s] influence was always used to keep up the cheerful character of the manufacture, and to administer, as much as possible, to the felicity of the inhabitants, and especially of the younger portion. It was there [at New Lanark] the first experiments were made of infant school education—that music and dancing were taught to the children—and that corporal punishment and coercive discipline were wholly excluded [. . .]. Bentham was attracted by Owen’s proposals—who had desired to get rid of his partners, inasmuch as they thwarted his plans of improvement. His theory was, that while he made a manufacturing population more virtuous and happy, he could also render them more productive to their employers: and in this respect he certainly fulfilled his engagements; and Bentham had every reason to be satisfied with the pecuniary results of his investments of money in the New Lanark Mills.^[8]

On January 1, 1816, Owen officially opened his “Institution for the Formation of Character” at New Lanark—a structured system of education for workers and especially for their children. Owen reports in his autobiography^[9] that he transformed the social and moral conditions of the workers and the surrounding village. He promoted virtue and industry, while working to reduce crime and vice. His reforms included temperance laws, better working conditions, better housing, reduced penal severity, and access to free education, even for infants.^[10] This initiative earned him worldwide acclaim. In 1816, Grand Duke Nicholas, the future czar of Russia, visited the community.^[11] Friedrich Froebel, the founder of modern kindergarten, visited in 1817 and was particularly impressed with Owen’s work with young children. Baron Jacobi, the Prussian ambassador, also visited the community, and they discussed Owen’s ideas on education. Jacobi brought Owen’s ideas and writings back to his czar, who greatly approved them and incorporated them into the Prussian education system, the first government-sponsored public education system.^[12] Beyond these, recounts Owen, there were visits from “Princes John and Maximilian of Austria, foreign ambassadors, many bishops, clergy innumerable, and almost all our nobility.”^[13]

Owen’s success at New Lanark and his growing reputation as a reformer emboldened him. He began to advocate for broader social change, believing that education and communal living could transform humanity. He envisioned a society in which environment and upbringing replaced punishment and coercion as the primary tools of moral development.

Owen Comes to America: New Harmony, Indiana

Encouraged by his success in Scotland, Owen envisioned the United States as the ideal setting for realizing his utopian dreams. After meeting Scottish-born American William Maclure in 1824, Owen became convinced.  In 1825, he joined Maclure in America to rally support for a new communal project. Probably through a combination of Maclure’s connections and Owen’s international renown, Owen was able to meet with various political leaders such as John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, outgoing President James Monroe, and President-elect John Quincy Adams. He gave two long speeches to the U.S. House of Representatives, as well. Towards the end of 1825, Maclure and Owen sailed down the Ohio River from Pittsburgh with a number of other intellectuals, a self-proclaimed “Boatload of Knowledge.” They opened a socialist community in New Harmony, Indiana that winter. This was one of 16 Owen-inspired utopian communities opened in the U.S. in the 19th century.

While the community attracted many well-educated individuals with high ideals, it also attracted some less desirable characters. Owen issued an invitation to all people to come join the community, confident that they would come because of a belief in his ideas and with a desire for the goals he proposed.^[14] New Harmony faced significant challenges, including financial difficulties, lack of cooperation among residents, and issues with crime. The community collapsed within a few years. Owen attributed the failure to society’s lack of readiness to embrace his revolutionary ideas. He believed the public needed more preparation to understand and accept his “New Society.”

The “Trinity of Evils”: Marriage, Religion, Property

For all his talk of character formation and morality, Robert Owen was anti-religious, anti-family, and a socialist. In 1826, on the 50th anniversary of our country’s independence, Owen gave a speech in New Harmony which crescendos with the following lines:

“I now declare, to you and to the world, that Man, up to this hour, has been, in all parts of the earth, a slave to a trinity of the most monstrous evils that could be combined to inflict mental and physical evil upon his whole race. I refer to

1. PRIVATE, OR INDIVIDUAL PROPERTY
2. ABSURD AND IRRATIONAL SYSTEMS OF RELIGION
3. MARRIAGE, FOUNDED ON INDIVIDUAL PROPERTY COMBINED WITH SOME ONE OF THESE IRRATIONAL SYSTEMS OF RELIGION”^[15]

In other works Owen makes similar attacks on religion, private property, and marriage.^{[16], [17], [18]}

Later in life, in 1835, Owen explains how marriages would occur in his “new society”. Marriage, he explains, should be based solely on affection between sexes and when this affection is no longer present, divorce is a reasonable course. His stance regarding the duty of parents to raise their children is also evident from this part of a section describing divorce:

“As all the children of the new world will be trained and educated under the superintendence and care of the Society, the separation of the parents will not produce any change in the condition of the rising generation.”^[19]

Owen’s radical stance on marriage and family was articulated by his collaborator, Orestes Brownson. Brownson, in his typical forgiving and reflective manner, analyzes the rationale behind these views. Owen and his followers, Brownson tells us, did not believe in free will or organized religion. Man’s actions and character are entirely determined by circumstances and temperament. Marriage is a false sentiment if there is no free will and religion – a man (or woman) cannot commit to marriage if they are not free to determine their actions and future circumstances. Brownson further reveals that Owen’s educational reforms were motivated first by the desire to form character, but secondarily to remove the necessity and burden of marriage. He writes the following about the “infant schools” (kindergartens) of Owen:

These schools were intended to deprive as well as to relieve parents of all care and responsibility of their children after a year or two of age.  It was assumed that parents were in general incompetent to train up their children in the way they should go, to form them with the right sort of characters, tempers and aims; and therefore it was proposed that the state should take the whole charge of the children, provide proper establishments, and teachers and governors for them, till they should reach the age of majority.  This would liberate the parents, and secure the principal advantages of a community of goods.

The aim was, on the one hand, to relieve marriage of its burdens, and to remove the principal reasons for making it indissoluble; and, on the other, to provide for bringing up all children in a rational manner to be reasonable men and women, that is, free from superstition, all belief in God and immorality, or regard for the invisible, and make them look upon this life as their only life, this earth as their only home, and the promotion of their earthly interests and enjoyments as their only end. ^[20]

Brownson also reveals that Robert Owen and his followers started a secret society in the United States to guide public opinion and secure political influence in order to eventually get socialist ideas to be accepted.

“But the more immediate work was to get our system of schools adopted.   To this end it was proposed to organize the whole Union secretly, very much on the plan of the Carbonari of Europe, of whom at that time I knew nothing.  The members of this secret society were to avail themselves of all the means in their power, each in his own locality, to form public opinion in favor of education by the state at the public expense, and to get such men elected to the legislatures as would be likely to favor our purposes.  How far the secret organization extended, I do not know; but I do know that a considerable portion of the State of New York was organized, for I was myself one of the agents for organizing it.  I, however, became tired of the work, and abandoned it after a few months.  Whether the organization still exists, or whether it has exerted any influence or not, is more than I am able to say, or have taken the pains to ascertain.”^[21]

“Spiritual,” not Religious

“Do not turn to mediums or seek out spiritists, for you will be defiled by them.”

• Leviticus 19:31

“Let no one be found among you who…consults ghosts and spirits, or seeks oracles from the dead. Anyone who does these things is detestable to the Lord.”

• Deuteronomy 18:10-12

Robert Owen was an open advocate for Spiritualism, the practice of communicating with the dead directly or through assistance of a medium or psychic. The Bible forbids it, and it is a traditionally held belief among Christians that spiritualism is a manifestation of either insanity or the demonic. Owen’s open advocacy for spiritualism is even more striking for his time, given the deeply Christian environment in which he was writing. He certainly did not do so to win followers to his cause, and many people of his day were wary of him because of it.

In the last few months of his life Owen convened the “Congress of the Advanced Minds of the World” in London, Owen gave an address entitled “Socialists, Secularists, and Spiritualists.”

If there were any doubts regarding Owen’s socialism, he clarifies this in this address:

“I therefore now declare myself, from the fullest convictions, to be a Socialist, such as I have now described, and to be opposed to the Satanic system of individualism.”^[22]

Later, in the same address, he declares confidence in the attainability of his goals for liberating society from ignorance and preparing a perfect utopia with the assistance of “Spirits.” He advocates for “true religion” or “new practical religion” divorced from ceremonies and external form. After describing how ouija boards work, he illustrates his own experience communicating with spirits beyond the grave.

“This great change, the wonder of all nations and peoples, will be effected through the medium of the, to many, strange and yet little understood Spiritual Manifestations.

“The spirits of just men made perfect, will assist, guide, and direct the way to the full and complete reformation and regeneration from ignorance to wisdom of the races of man, thus preparing, through a new practical religion, a new earth, and a new sphere in heaven for those thus reformed and thus regenerated.

“There are Spirits now around and about us, Spirits who, through the aid of superior intelligence and power, have been purified and perfected, who are now deeply interested in forming and carrying forward certain various measures in different parts of the world, to bring this great and glorious change for humanity — this new dispensation, and permanent happy existence of man upon the earth, to prepare him at once for the higher enjoyments of superior spheres in heaven…

“These communications are made, according to the peculiar combination of the qualities mentioned, by tipping of tables, by raps upon them or on other furniture, on the floor or other parts of the house; and through these communications by means of tippings or rappings when particular letters of the alphabet are pointed to, intelligent communications are made, entirely without the will or knowledge of the medium; and often these communications are most deeply interesting to the persons to who they are especially addressed.

“I have received communications from various influences calling themselves Spirits of departed friends and relatives, in whom when living I had full and perfect confidence in their integrity, and as each made their communications to me in the character, strongly exhibited, which they possessed when living on the earth, I am compelled to believe their testimony as thus given; and as these communications have a good and high character in testifying not to the active exertions made by superior Spirits to assist developed men now to reform and regenerate the human races, I think their direct and uniform statements respecting themselves, are far more worthy of credit, than the random suppositions of those who are evidently ignorant of the whole subject of Spiritualism, and who by their previously acquired prejudices are strongly opposed to admit the existence of spirits against any evidence that can be testified by human means to the contrary…

“This is now our business; and the Spirits, by the unchanging laws of their will-power, shall ceaselessly take care of their own, and certainly perform their duties to us.”^[23]

Owen concludes the congress with these ominous words:

“It is indeed high time that the authorities in all churches and states should now take into their most grave consideration that the mind of the world has so far advanced that it has become full time for them at least now to put away childish things, their toys and baubles, and become men consistent in profession, mind, and practice, and to gradually supersede the ignorant, unjust, cruel, and irrational laws of men, by the wise, just merciful, good, and all-efficient laws of God and nature for the happy government of the human race.

“This progress in material and mental science is required of all the authorities of the world, and it must be done through the progressive advancement of events beyond human control.”^[24]

Owen had written about this in a book published 1854, entitled “The Future of the Human Race or A Great, Glorious, and Peaceful Revolution Near At Hand To Be Effected Through The Agency of Departed Spirits of Good and Superior Men and Women.”^[25] Owen stresses the importance of using the help from departed spirits to enact his new system, and he includes notes from various seances he held with various media.^[26]

In the first edition of Owen’s autobiography, he includes a letter from John Murray Spear, a spiritualist minister from Boston. Owen writes the following, regarding the letter:

The following address I have just received from parties in the United States , whose lives are devoted to the great cause of humanity, irrespective of colour, creed, country, or class. It is the most advanced in principle and for practice, and contains more valuable common sense and right reasoning than I have yet seen from any party, visible or invisible ; and it is in many respects the document which of all others the most deserves the profound consideration of the advanced minds of the world.

…And for the great truths which it contains, my best thanks are due to the superior Spirits who dictated it, and to the medium through whom it was received, and by whom it was sent to me.^[27]

In the letter, Spear explains that he is communicating words from the “Spirit World”, which looks to Owen to carry out their plan to bring the human race to “supply man’s natural wants” and put an end to war.

Unquestionably the American nation is the place above all others to commence a work of this sort. Domain can easily be had, economically purchased in central positions. Whoever then shall see that this is the work to be done will focalise their efforts in that particular direction. At first, efforts, of necessity, will be of a rude and simple character, yet having the right elements, commanding the heart, head and hands, the little tree may be planted, watered with tears, call forth an intense interest, bring out the diviner and emotional faculties, lift up the soul to God, cultivate the affections, and the enterprise shall be, as it were, a dear child struggling into birth ; and when the hour shall come then plans of a broad, philanthropic, and business character shall be unfolded, then easy and natural steps can be taken. Already a single person has journeyed somewhat extensively in the New World, teaching these doctrines, unfolding these principles , declaring practical plans, calling out eminent persons. The Old World and the New need to combine their efforts. At a favourable moment some few choice persons will leave the New World, land on the shores of the Old, with a view of interesting persons of different nations in this branch of labour. Sir, the Spirit World looks to you; it knows your untiring fidelity; it rejoices that such an one has lived to ripe old age; it sees you busily arranging your papers; preparing your departure to a higher and diviner state. ^[28]

In several parts of his autobiography, Owen describes his communications with various spirits including the Duke of Kent, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Lord Byron, and several of the old prophets.^[29]

As St. Paul warns, “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.” (Eph. 6:12) Truly, Owen seems to have enlisted the aid of spiritual powers in his efforts to spread socialism through education. In spite of frequent references to God and warnings against the Satanism of his enemies, he seems to have fallen on the wrong side of the battle line. Let us not forget to also enlist spiritual powers in our struggle for the good.

Owen’s Apparent Failure in the United States

After his failure in New Harmony, Indiana, Owen spent much of the rest of his life in London. He wrote, gave speeches, and met with educators and politicians. His children remained in the U.S., however. His son, Robert Dale Owen, a wiser and more moderate version of his father, did much to subvert the family in Indiana, where he was a congressman. He promoted the rights for women to own property separately from their husbands (this was met in Congress initially with objections that it would destroy families), he worked to soften divorce laws in the state.^[30]

Public opinion in the U.S. turned against Owen when newspapers published his views on religion. This happened as early as 1825, just as he was beginning his community in New Harmony, Indiana^[31], but it continued for several years until he left the United States. Owen describes that as early as 1818, booksellers in Ireland and Great Britain stopped selling Owen’s writings for fear of association with him.^[32] Perhaps it is for this reason that few educational reformers after him would explicitly associate with his ideas.

In spite of Owen’s apparent failure to get socialism into the American government, Morris Hillquit, founder and leader of the Socialist Party of America, argues that Robert Owen was the first to bring socialism to America, and that he laid the groundwork for the more successful Fourierite socialist communities that existed in the United States in the latter part of the 19th century.^[33] One of these communities, Brook Farm in Massachusetts, was familiar to Horace Mann.

Nathaniel Hawthorne, Horace Mann’s brother-in-law, was a founding member of Brook Farm, a utopian socialist community in Massachusetts similar to Owen’s community in New Harmony.

In 1860, Elizabeth and Mary started the first kindergarten in the U.S. based on the principles of Friedrich Froebel, who had been influenced by Owen’s ideas for early childhood moral education. It is largely through the efforts of Elizabeth and Mary Peabody that kindergarten became an accepted practice in the United States.

Robert Owen’s Legacy: Prussia, Scotland, and the USA

Although his utopian community at New Harmony failed, his community in New Lanark, Scotland sparked interest from educators and politicians around the globe, in particular in Scotland and Prussia. The education systems of Prussia and Scotland came to be known as some of the best in the world. In 1843, Horace Mann, Secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Education and “Father of the American Public School System”, visited European schools. On his return to the United States, he moved to adopt many of the educational methods and philosophy of Scottish and Prussian schools.^[34]

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Citations

^[1] https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofWales/Robert-Owen-Father-British-Socialsm/

^[2] Davis, Robert A, and Frank O’hagan. Robert Owen. London, Continuum, 2014.

^[3] https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=umn.319510020944956&seq=6

^[4] https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=nyp.33433044675589&seq=31

^[5] Davis, Robert A, and Frank O’hagan. Robert Owen. London, Continuum, 2014. Robert Owen

^[6] https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=nyp.33433044675589&seq=62

^[7] https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=nyp.33433044675589&seq=62

^[8] (Bowring, in Bentham 1838– 1843: vol. x, 476–7)

^[9] Owen, Robert. The Life of Robert Owen Written by Himself. London, Effingham Wilson, Royal Exchange, 1857.

^[10] Francis and O’Hagan, in their book Robert Owen, say that Owen seems to have exaggerated the poor conditions at New Lanark at or before his arrival. Based on their own historical research, it would seem that Owen’s father-in-law David Dale had already incorporated many labor reforms which improved working conditions of the workers at New Lanark.

^[11] Owen, Robert. The Life of Robert Owen Written by Himself. London, Effingham Wilson, Royal Exchange, 1857.

^[12] Owen, Robert. The Life of Robert Owen Written by Himself. London, Effingham Wilson, Royal Exchange, 1857.

^[13] Owen, Robert. The Life of Robert Owen Written by Himself. London, Effingham Wilson, Royal Exchange, 1857.

^[14] Johnson, Elizabeth. “A Welcome Attack on American Values: How the Doctrines of Robert Owen Attracted American Society,” Constructing the Past: Vol. 8: Iss. 1, Article 9, 2007, https://digitalcommons.iwu.edu/constructing/vol8/iss1/9

^[15] Owen, Robert. Oration, Containing a Declaration of Mental Independence. New Harmony Gazette, 4 July 1826, declarationproject.org/?p=335.

^[16] A New View of Society (1813), pg. 51

^[17] Owen, Robert. Outline of the Rational System of Society: Founded on Demonstrable Facts, Developing the First Principles of the Science of Human Nature. 1813. 6th ed., Society of Rational Religionists, 1840, p. 17, www.google.com/books/edition/An_Outline_of_the_Rational_System_of_Soc/JLcZz4kSlrwC?hl=en&gbpv=0.

^[18]  Owen, Robert. Lectures on the Marriages of the Priesthood of the Old Immoral World, Delivered in the Year 1835, before the Passing of the New Marriage Act … Fourth Edition, Etc. Leeds, J. Hobson, 1840, p. 89, www.google.com/books/edition/Lectures_on_the_Marriages_of_the_Priesth/BMBYAAAAcAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0.

^[19] Owen, Robert. Lectures on the Marriages of the Priesthood of the Old Immoral World, Delivered in the Year 1835, before the Passing of the New Marriage Act … Fourth Edition, Etc. Leeds, J. Hobson, 1840, p. 89, www.google.com/books/edition/Lectures_on_the_Marriages_of_the_Priesth/BMBYAAAAcAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0.

^[20] Brownson, Orestes Augustus. The Convert: Or, Leaves from My Experience. New York, Edward Dunigan & Brother, 1857, p. 134, orestesbrownson.org/the-convert-or-leaves-from-my-experience.html.

^[21] Brownson, Orestes Augustus. The Convert: Or, Leaves from My Experience. New York, Edward Dunigan & Brother, 1857, pp. 128–131, orestesbrownson.org/the-convert-or-leaves-from-my-experience.html.

^[22] “Report of the Meetings of the Congress of the Advanced Minds of the World : Convened by Robert Owen, Held in St. Martin’s Hall, Long Acre, and in the Literary …” HathiTrust, 2025, babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=hvd.32044013540000&seq=98. Accessed 20 Mar. 2025.

^[23] “Report of the Meetings of the Congress of the Advanced Minds of the World : Convened by Robert Owen, Held in St. Martin’s Hall, Long Acre, and in the Literary …” HathiTrust, 2025, babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=hvd.32044013540000&seq=98. Accessed 20 Mar. 2025.

^[24] “Report of the Meetings of the Congress of the Advanced Minds of the World : Convened by Robert Owen, Held in St. Martin’s Hall, Long Acre, and in the Literary …” HathiTrust, 2025, babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=hvd.32044013540000&seq=157. Accessed 20 Mar. 2025.

^[25]  Owen, Robert. The Future of the Human Race, etc. London, Effingham Wilson, Royal Exchange, 1854, www.google.com/books/edition/The_Future_of_the_Human_Race/FKZGAQAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0.

^[26] Owen, Robert. The Future of the Human Race, etc. London, Effingham Wilson, Royal Exchange, 1854, www.google.com/books/edition/The_Future_of_the_Human_Race/FKZGAQAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0.

^[27]  Owen, Robert. The Life of Robert Owen Written by Himself. London, Effingham Wilson, Royal Exchange, 1857.

^[28]  Owen, Robert. The Life of Robert Owen Written by Himself. London, Effingham Wilson, Royal Exchange, 1857.

^[29]  Owen, Robert. The Life of Robert Owen Written by Himself. London, Effingham Wilson, Royal Exchange, 1857.

^[30] https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/35687/pg35687-images.html#CHAPTER_IX

^[31] https://digitalcommons.iwu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1007&context=constructing

^[32]   Owen, Robert. The Life of Robert Owen Written by Himself. London, Effingham Wilson, Royal Exchange, 1857.

^[33] https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=nyp.33433044675589&seq=31

^[34] 7th Annual Report (1844)