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Robert Owen As A Businessman

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 July 2012

Peter Gorb
Peter Gorb
Affiliation:
Harvard University
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Extract

The student of the various working-class movements which originated in the period of the Industrial Revolution in England has always to take account of the influence of Robert Owen on these movements. To each of them, this strange and interesting man brought a set of ideas and a range of experience which, when viewed in the light of his personal history, are of significance to the business historian.

Type
Research Article
Information
Business History Review , Volume 25 , Issue 3 , September 1951 , pp. 127 - 148
Copyright
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College 1951

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References

1 Unwin, George, Samuel Oldknow and the Arkwrights (Manchester, England, 1924), pp. 95–96.Google Scholar

2 Parliamentary Report (London, 1816), p. 118.Google Scholar

3 Owen, Robert, The Life of Robert Owen (London, 1857), p. 13.Google Scholar

4 Idem.

5 Ibid., p. 28.

6 Ibid., p. 29.

7 Ibid., p. 35.

8 Ibid., pp. 30–31.

9 His reasons for leaving and the way in which Oldknow, the famous manufacturer, entered into them, are interesting, and can be found in his autobiography.

10 Owen, Robert, A New View of Society: or Essays on the Principle of the Formation of the Human Character (London, 1813)Google Scholar, “First Essay on the Formation of Character,” p. 13.

11 Owen, Robert, Report to the County of Lanark (Glasgow, 1821), p. 15.Google Scholar

12 Owen, Robert, A New View of Society, An Address To the Superintendants of Manufactories, … prefixed to the “Third Essay on the Formation of Character” (London, 1816), pp. 71, 73, 74.Google Scholar

13 Ibid., “Second Essay on the Formation of Character,” pp. 50–51.

14 One formerly a teacher at New Lanark: Robert Owen at New Lanark, 1839 (Manchester, 1839), p. 5. This book is an amusing source for many interesting personal anecdotes, and shows something of the regard in which Owen was held.

15 Macnab, Henry G., The New Views of Mr. Owen of Lanark, Impartially Examined (London, 1819)Google Scholar, passim. Macnab, the chaplain to the Duke of Kent, came to spy for his patron and left completely won over. His book gives a detailed account of the community.

16 See Owen's Life of Robert Owen for an account of a peculiar device involving colored blocks of wood, which were to regulate factory conduct, and which by any standards appears to be a little cranky.

17 Owen, Robert D., Threading My Way (London, 1874), p. 73.Google Scholar The early part of this book gives an interesting account of Owen as seen by his son.

18 Owen, Life of Robert Owen, p. 97.

19 Owen, “Second Essay on the Formation of Character,” 1813, p. 2.

20 Owen, “Third Essay on the Formation of Character,” 1816, p. 80.

21 Podmore, Frank, Robert Owen: A Biography, vol. I (London, 1906), pp. 133–134.Google Scholar

22 Owen, Robert D., An Outline of the System of Education at New Lanark (Glasgow, 1824)Google Scholar, Appendix.

23 Podmore, Robert Owen, p. 144. The quote is worth reading a t length.

24 Ibid., p. 143.

25 Owen, Life of Robert Owen, pp. 91, 98; Cole, G. D. H., Robert Owen (Boston, 1925), p. 83.Google Scholar

26 Owen, Robert, Report to the County of Lanark (Glasgow, 1821), pp. 55–56.Google Scholar