Robert Owen Museum

14/04/2026

Unfortunately the museum will be closed on Wednesday 15/04/2026 and Wednesday 22/04/2026 due to staff training. Apologies for the inconvenience.

10/04/2026

In the winter of 1825–1826, the president, librarian, and several members of the Philadelphia Academy of Sciences headed west from Pittsburgh on the Ohio River. Academy President William Maclure, “father of American geology,” had gathered them all aboard the keelboat Philantropist [they used the French spelling]: scientists, artists, musicians, and educators, some bringing along their students, and all were eager to settle in Robert Owen’s New Harmony community on the Indiana frontier.

📖 This Saturday in New Harmony!

The Owen-Maclure 200 Monthly Lecture takes place April 11 at 2 PM (CDT) at the New Harmony Working Men's Institute.

Learn how William Maclure’s educational ideas shaped American learning through a lecture by Dr. Gerald Gutek, one of the nation’s leading historians of education.

🎟️ Free admission
📍 407 Tavern Street, New Harmony

We look forward to seeing you there!

11/02/2026

New Lanark World Heritage destination near Glasgow shares Robert Owen Utopian Legacy.

12/01/2026

Robert Owen a humble drapers apprentice from Newtown Powys Mid Wales Legacy lives on in New Lanark World Heritage Site in Scotland and Historic New Harmony USA. Wales Co-Operative Heritage Trust People's Collection Wales The History of Wales

Community Talks!

Join us at Lanark Library on Thursday 29th of January at 2pm for a talk on the People of New Lanark.

From familiar figures like David Dale and Robert Owen to the lesser-known paupers, doctors, soldiers and Millworkers who called New Lanark their home, join us at Lanark Library to learn about the fascinating People of New Lanark!

📍Where - Lanark Library
🗓 When - Thursday 29th of January
🎫Tickets - Free!

Contact Lanark Library on 01555 661144 to book your place!

22/11/2025

We're excited to help announce the launch of the Owen-Maclure 200 website and social media accounts!

The Owen-Maclure 200 is a two-year bicentennial project exploring New Harmony's 1825-1827 utopian experiment.

Two hundred years ago, Robert Owen and William Maclure transformed New Harmony into a laboratory for social reform, gathering scientists, educators, artists, and reformers to reimagine society itself. The experiment lasted just two years, but the questions it raised about education, equality, and community continue to resonate today.

The Owen-Maclure 200 project will share stories, primary sources, educational resources, and public programming that examine this pivotal moment in American history. This experiment was not a simple success or failure, but a complex chapter that still has much to teach us.

Follow Owen-Maclure 200 for updates and visit www.owenmaclure200.com to explore the full digital experience.

Join us as we dig into 200 years of questions from a 2-year experiment!

17/11/2025

Robert Owen died on this day in 1858 in Newtown Bear (Heads) Hotel. Prior to his passing he laid out plans for the regeneration of Newtown. On the 50th anniversary of Robert Owen's death the President of Newtown Cooperative Society announced " there is no saint of the 19th century who had done more for humanity than Robert Owen the great social reformer. In truth he did not preach the words of Christ but he did practice them". People's Collection Wales The History of Wales StoriPowys Wales GlobalWelsh Historic New Harmony New Lanark World Heritage Site Robert Owen Museum

31/08/2025

Robert Owen was born ahead of his time, but without pioneers and social philanthropists like him the world will not learn to be kind and believe in equality. People's Collection Wales New Lanark World Heritage Site Historic New Harmony Co-operative News Co-Operative Heritage Trust Newtown & Llanllwchaiarn Town Council Co-operatives UK Co-operatives and Mutuals Wales GlobalWelsh

"Eight hours labour, Eight hours recreation, Eight hours rest.”

Labor Day weekend in the U.S. and Canada commemorates the contributions of workers, rooted in the labor movement’s struggle for fair working hours and conditions.

The movement’s origins trace back to Wales, where Robert Owen, a textile mill owner and social reformer, first proposed the idea of an eight-hour workday. In 1817, Owen famously advocated for “eight hours labor, eight hours recreation, and eight hours rest,” emphasizing a balanced life for industrial workers.

Owen’s vision resonated beyond Wales and sparked labor movements across the world, including in the U.S. A pivotal moment in this fight came in 1886 with the Haymarket Affair in Chicago. The peaceful rally for the eight-hour workday, which had been inspired by Owen's ideas, turned violent, drawing national attention to the cause and galvanizing the push for labor reforms.

By the early 20th century, the eight-hour workday became a widespread standard. Today, Labor Day honors the historical struggles of workers, reflecting on the legacy of figures like Robert Owen and events like those in Chicago that helped shape modern labor rights.

22/08/2025

https://youtu.be/LM0SDjR6H8c
Unfortunately Business Social Entrepreneurs and Philanthropists like Robert Owen don't exist anymore.

A short animated film about philanthropist and social reformer, Robert Owen.

17/08/2025

Robert Owen of Newtown's eldest son Robert Dale Owen (1801-1877). People's Collection Wales

- In 1827, Joseph Nicéphore Niépce took the earliest known surviving permanent photograph with the help of a camera obscura. He called his process héliographie, translated as “sun writing.”

Two years later in 1829, Niépce became business partners with artist Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre (1787–1851). Daguerre worked with Niépce’s process, determined to reduce the exposure time, which was 8 hours when Niépce experimented with his first photos. Eventually, Daguerre reduced the exposure time to a few seconds. In 1839, he publicly announced the new “daguerreotype” process.

A daguerreotype is an early photographic process that creates a highly detailed image on a silvered copper plate. It involves making a single, direct positive image without a negative. This means that each daguerreotype is a unique object.

Daguerreotypes became very popular for portraiture in the 1840s and 1850s. They were widely adopted in the western world; studios advertised photographic portraits to meet the growing demand for the highly detailed and clear images.

Historic New Harmony is fortunate to have this daguerreotype shown here in our museum collection. It is a portrait of Robert Dale Owen, son of social reformer Robert Owen and a member of the Indiana House of Representatives and the U.S. House of Representatives in the 1830s and 1840s. He pushed through the bill that established the Smithsonian Institution and served on the Smithsonian’s first Board of Regents.

As a daguerreotype, this image of Robert Dale Owen is unique. It was owned by Mary Emily Fauntleroy and later passed on to Florence Cooper Tanner, who donated it to Historic New Harmony.

—
Source:
Harry Ransom Center, “The Niépce Heliograph”: https://www.hrc.utexas.edu/niepce-heliograph/

09/08/2025

The Robert Owen Museum in Newtown will be open for summer on Saturdays, August 9th, August 23rd, and September 6th, opening at 11am.

Summer Opening - 2025 - Robert Owen Museum - * NEW FOR 2025 *

05/07/2025

Robert Owen believed in co-operative communities.