The New Harmony movement,

by George Browning Lockwood

This book forms a practical lesson in sociology, in that part of sociology which treats of the "isms" of that important science. Partial Contents: New Harmony's place in history; Rise of the Rappites; Rappites hegira; Robert Owen and the Industrial Revolution; Agitation in England; New moral world; Founding of New Harmony; Permanent community; Social system on trial; Community disintegration; Robert Owen's farewell addresses; Ten lost tribes of communism; Woman at New Harmony; Educational experiment; Josiah Warren; New Harmony's later history; Robert Dale Owen.

404 pages, Paperback

First published August 27, 2003

Reviews

[Kitap Yakıcı]

Fascinating, if dated and plodding, look at two utopian communities, one religious in nature, the other a social experiment, that grew up in the western frontier wilderness of 1820s USA, i.e., in Indiana along the Wabash River. The book relies on research performed in the late 1890s and cites quite a few primary sources extensively. It is definitely a springboard for further reading on the Rappites, the Owenites, Josiah Warren, and Robert Dale Owen, if not a preparatory guide for a visit to the modern town of New Harmony, IN. A nearly 100-page long chapter on the educational methods of the New Harmony Movement might interest historians of education, and the book's overall take on the viability of communes and of communism, from the perspective of a pre-Russian Revolution world (i.e., 1905), was fascinating.