Robert Owen
Robert Owen
1771–1858
Social reformer who emphasized education and cooperation
In A New View of Society (1816) Owen argued that “any general character may be given to any community by the application of proper means,” a principle he later tested at New Lanark and New Harmony.
A Welsh-born British manufacturer and social reformer, Owen sought to improve working, living and educational conditions at New Lanark. In A New View of Society he argued that environment and education form human character. He later pursued cooperative and communal experiments. Marx and Engels’ classification of Owen as a utopian socialist is a later, polemical interpretation. His early reform proposals should be distinguished from the International Working Men’s Association’s emphasis on workers’ self-emancipation.
Career timeline
- 1792Became manager of the Piccadilly Mill in Manchester.
- 1800Bought the New Lanark mills with partners in 1799 and managed them from January 1800.
- 1824–1827Led the New Harmony community experiment in Indiana, which was dissolved in 1827.
- 1828Settled in London, championing cooperatives, the trade union movement and child labour legislation.
- 1832Opened the National Equitable Labour Exchange, based on labour notes.
- 1834Briefly led the Grand National Consolidated Trades Union before its collapse in 1834.
- 1835Formed the Association of all Classes of all Nations and served as its first leader.