Caring for Others

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Title: Caring for Others

1
Caring for Others
Robert Owen
2
Robert Owen

3
Robert Owen

Robert Owen was born in Newtown, Wales on the 14
May, 1771.
He is famous for his philanthropic ideas which
were very rare in the nineteenth century.
He lived until 17 November 1858.
During his life he ran a mill in New Lanark,
Scotland, established a colony called New Harmony
in the USA, and was one of the founders of
socialism, trade unions and the co-operative
movement.

Robert Owen
4
Robert Owen and New Lanark

Owen was a manager at this mill and one of the
owners.
It was at this mill that he was able to put into
practice some of his ideas on how to treat
workers and children better.
He believed that if workers were happy in their
lives then they would be much happier at work.
This would mean that they would work harder and
produce much more.

5
Robert Owen and New Lanark cont.

When Owen arrived at New Lanark he found that the
workers had many problems including poverty,
drunkenness, criminal behaviour and worse.
Most of the time education and cleanliness were
completely ignored.
He also found that the amount of poverty in the
area caused many families to live in one room.

Mill workers at New Lanark in the 1890s
6
Robert Owen what people ate

Owen found that the peoples diet was very poor.
The shops in New Lanark village were owned by
private shopkeepers and to make sure as much
money as possible was made, the shopkeeper would
often allow food, like flour, sugar, and coffee,
to be mixed with other products.
This made them less healthy.
In mills and factories outside New Lanark, the
workers could only get their food from the truck
shop.
This shop was owned by the mill owner. The
employer paid the workers in tokens that could
only be used at the truck shop.
This meant that the employers could charge high
prices for low quality food.

Inside Toad Lane, the Rochdale Pioneers shop.
The beginning of todays co-operative movement.
7
What Owen did

Owen decided to make many changes.
He introduced education for both the workers and
their children.
Classes at his mill included mathematics,
geography and dancing.
He also made sure that the shop only sold quality
goods and that part of the profit from the sales
went back to the workers.

A dancing class at New Lanark
8
Did it work?

In many ways yes.
Visitors to the mill would comment about the
excellent manners of the children, the happiness
of the workers, the lack of drunkenness, and how
well run the mill was.
Of course such changes did cause problems.
The other owners of the mill were always moaning
that Owens ideas cost so much money.

New Lanark Mill
9
Owen and Communities

Owen would not be stopped.
Having made a success of New Lanark he decided
that he wanted to build ideal communities in
which everyone worked in harmony and happiness.
He wanted groups of families to live within the
communities and help each other in the day to day
running of them including work, and bringing up
the children.
This he believed would end poverty.

Robert Owen
10
Did it work 2?

His most famous attempt to make this work
happened in New Harmony, Indiana, USA.
This was the first, in what Owen hoped would be a
series of such communities.
In fact it was an enormous and very costly
failure that ended after two years.

New Harmony USA
11
Questions