A utopian society is one where the members believe their way of life is near perfect. Of course, this is a mere opinion that they share amongst each other. In the United States, a movement often referred to as the Second Great Awakening inspired several attempts at the perfect society, many of which ceased to exist shortly after being created. Near the Wabash river in the state of Indiana, Johann Georg Rapp, a German immigrant, established the town of Harmony, in 1814. A bit over 10 years later, a man with a plan sailed over from the old continent to establish a site where he could implement his vision of a “New Moral World.” The man was Robert Owen, and the town of Harmony fit his needs perfectly. In 1825 Robert Owen signed the contract to
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He followed the philosophical ideas of Jeremy Bentham and Quaker William Allen, two very important men in Owens life; they taught Owen philosophy which caused his different and unique ideas. Robert Owen started to recruit citizens for New Harmony and in April of 1825 he returned to the town with around seven to eight hundred people who would become Owens new “test subjects”. The society adopted the “Constitution of the Preliminary Society” which stated that citizens would provide their own household goods and invest in an enterprise that would promote independence and social equality (two very important concepts that this society was based on). In this society, the people would get “credit” to buy items in stores by doing services to benefiting their community, and if people refused to work, they could make advanced payments to the store with actual cash. The town had seven leaders who led the community, four of which were chosen by Robert Owen and the other three were chosen by the community. Yet it wasn’t long until things started to head downhill for this project. People in the community started arguing about inequity in credits from workers to non-workers. These arguments started when Robert Owen headed east to
He followed the philosophical ideas of Jeremy Bentham and Quaker William Allen, two very important men in Owens life; they taught Owen philosophy which caused his different and unique ideas. Robert Owen started to recruit citizens for New Harmony and in April of 1825 he returned to the town with around seven to eight hundred people who would become Owens new “test subjects”. The society adopted the “Constitution of the Preliminary Society” which stated that citizens would provide their own household goods and invest in an enterprise that would promote independence and social equality (two very important concepts that this society was based on). In this society, the people would get “credit” to buy items in stores by doing services to benefiting their community, and if people refused to work, they could make advanced payments to the store with actual cash. The town had seven leaders who led the community, four of which were chosen by Robert Owen and the other three were chosen by the community. Yet it wasn’t long until things started to head downhill for this project. People in the community started arguing about inequity in credits from workers to non-workers. These arguments started when Robert Owen headed east to