Who was he?
Robert was born in Wales on 14 May 1771.
He left school aged ten to train as a draper or cloth merchant ( a merchant is someone
who trades in goods made by other people). A draper's shop would sell cloth for people to buy
and make their own clothing.
At 21 he was managing a cotton mill in Manchester.
Owen saw working people had a very hard life and thought they would work more productively
if they had better welfare and were happier.
At New Lanark mill in Scotland he gave workers shorter days, free
healthcare and education from childhood to adulthood.
His belief in improving the lives of workers helped improve conditions in workplaces all over the
world.
He later moved to America to start up new working communities.
Robert Owen died in Wales on 17 November 1858 aged 87.
Why is Owen so important?
Owen believed working people deserved kinder treatment. He thought if all people had a
better quality of life, it would create a better, happier society.
To make workers' lives better Owen introduced the following ideas at New Lanark:
Free education system for everyone including:
A creche for working mothers
The first infant school in the world
A school for children with enjoyable lessons and no punishments!
Evening classes and lectures for adults
Free medical care
Children under 10 were not allowed to work in the mill.
The village shop became the model for cooperatives, offering cheaper goods for workers with
profits going back into the community.
Shorter working days
Leisure and recreation - free concerts, dancing, music-making and pleasant outdoor space
Robert Owen - BBC Bitesize
Robert Owen, (born May 14, 1771, Newtown, Montgomeryshire, Wales—died
Nov. 17, 1858, Newtown), Welsh manufacturer and philanthropist. At his New
Lanark cotton mills (Lanarkshire, Scot.), in partnership with Jeremy Bentham,
he set up innovative social and industrial welfare programs, including
improved housing and schools for young children. In A New View of
Society (1813) he contended that character is wholly formed by one’s
environment. By 1817 his work had evolved into ideas presaging socialism
and the cooperative movement, ideas he would spend much of his life
preaching. He sponsored several experimental utopian communities of
“Owenites” in Britain and the U.S., including one at New Harmony, Ind.
(1825–28)—where Owen lost some 80% of his fortune—all of which proved
short-lived. He strongly supported early labour unions, but opposition and
repression swiftly dissolved them, and it was two generations before socialism
again influenced unionism. He was the father of Robert Dale Owen.
Robert Dale Owen (born Nov. 9, 1801, Glasgow, Scot.—died June 24, 1877, Lake
George, N.Y., U.S.) was an American social reformer and politician. The son of the
English reformer Robert Owen, Robert Dale Owen was steeped in his father’s socialist
philosophy while growing up at New Lanark in Scotland—the elder Owen’s model
industrial community. In 1825, father and son immigrated to the United States to set up
another self-sufficient socialist community at New Harmony, Ind.
Robert Dale Owen edited the community’s newspaper, the New Harmony Gazette, until
1827, when he became associated with the controversial reformer Fanny Wright. They
traveled together to Wright’s experimental community of Nashoba, Tenn., which was
dedicated to the education and gradual emancipation of slaves, and from there went on
to Europe.
Upon returning to the United States, Owen and Wright revisited the Nashoba and New
Harmony communities, then in a state of decay. They settled in New York, where Owen
edited the Free Enquirer. The paper opposed evangelical religion and advocated more
liberal divorce laws, more equal distribution of wealth, and widespread industrial
education; it was at the centre of radical free thought in New York. For two years,
Owen, with Wright and other radicals, sought to turn the New York Workingmen’s Party
away from Thomas Skidmore’s belief in an equal division of property. They successfully
ousted Skidmore, but later their own program of social reform through public education
was also repudiated.
After a brief trip to England in 1832, Owen returned to New Harmony. He served three
terms in the Indiana legislature (1836–1838), where he advocated the allocation of
government funds for public schools, and two terms in the U.S. House of
Representatives, where he introduced the bill creating the Smithsonian Institution.
Owen was defeated for a third term in Congress and went back to Indiana, where he
advocated property rights for married women and liberalization of divorce laws.
Appointed chargé d’affaires at Naples in 1853 and minister to Italy in 1855, Owen spent
much of the 1850s abroad. Upon his return in 1858, he became an outspoken proponent
of emancipation; at the outbreak of the American Civil War, he urged an end
to slavery in a letter to President Lincoln, a letter that Secretary of the Treasury Salmon
Chase said greatly influenced the president.
In 1863 Owen headed a committee to investigate the condition of the freedmen and
wrote a book on his findings, The Wrong of Slavery (1864). In it he surprised many
people by counseling a 10-year delay in granting the newly emancipated slaves the right
to vote.
cotton, seed-hair fibre of several species of plants of the genus Gossypium, belonging
to the hibiscus, or mallow, family (Malvaceae).
Cotton, one of the world’s leading agricultural crops, is plentiful and economically
produced, making cotton products relatively inexpensive. The fibres can be made into a
wide variety of fabrics ranging from lightweight voiles and laces to heavy sailcloths and
thick-piled velveteens, suitable for a great variety of wearing apparel, home furnishings,
and industrial uses. Cotton fabrics can be extremely durable and resistant to abrasion.
Cotton accepts many dyes, is usually washable, and can be ironed at relatively high
temperatures. It is comfortable to wear because it absorbs and releases moisture
quickly. When warmth is desired, it can be napped, a process giving the fabric a downy
surface. Various finishing processes have been developed to make cotton resistant to
stains, water, and mildew; to increase resistance to wrinkling, thus reducing or
eliminating the need for ironing; and to reduce shrinkage in laundering to not more
than 1 percent. Nonwoven cotton, made by fusing or bonding the fibres together, is
useful for making disposable products to be used as towels, polishing cloths, tea bags,
tablecloths, bandages, and disposable uniforms and sheets for hospital and other
medical uses.
Cotton fibre processing
More From Britannica
origins of agriculture: Mechanized equipment for cotton
Cotton fibres may be classified roughly into three large groups, based on staple length
(average length of the fibres making up a sample or bale of cotton) and appearance. The
first group includes the fine, lustrous fibres with staple length ranging from about 2.5 to
6.5 cm (about 1 to 2.5 inches) and includes types of the highest quality—such as Sea
Island, Egyptian, and pima cottons. Least plentiful and most difficult to grow, long-
staple cottons are costly and are used mainly for fine fabrics, yarns, and hosiery. The
second group contains the standard medium-staple cotton, such as American Upland,
with staple length from about 1.3 to 3.3 cm (0.5 to 1.3 inches). The third group includes
the short-staple, coarse cottons, ranging from about 1 to 2.5 cm (0.5 to 1 inch) in
length, used to make carpets and blankets, coarse and inexpensive fabrics, and blends
with other fibres.
carding machineClose-up of a carding machine at a textile mill.
Most of the seeds (cottonseed) are separated from the fibres by a mechanical process
called ginning. Ginned cotton is shipped in bales to a textile mill
for yarn manufacturing. A traditional and still common processing method is ring
spinning, by which the mass of cotton may be subjected to opening and cleaning,
picking, carding, combing, drawing, roving, and spinning. The cotton bale is opened,
and its fibres are raked mechanically to remove foreign matter (e.g., soil and seeds). A
picker (picking machine) then wraps the fibres into a lap. A card (carding) machine
brushes the loose fibres into rows that are joined as a soft sheet, or web, and forms
them into loose untwisted rope known as card sliver. For higher-quality yarn, card sliver
is put through a combing machine, which straightens the staple further and removes
unwanted short lengths, or noils. In the drawing (drafting) stage, a series of variable-
speed rollers attenuates and reduces the sliver to firm uniform strands of usable size.
Thinner strands are produced by the roving (slubbing) process, in which the sliver is
converted to roving by being pulled and slightly twisted. Finally, the roving is
transferred to a spinning frame, where it is drawn further, twisted on a ring spinner,
and wound on a bobbin as yarn.
cotton spinningRotor spinning machines at a coarse cotton factory.
Faster production methods include rotor spinning (a type of open-end spinning), in
which fibres are detached from the card sliver and twisted, within a rotor, as they are
joined to the end of the yarn. For the production of cotton blends, air-jet spinning may
be used; in this high-speed method, air currents wrap loose fibres around a straight
sliver core. Blends (composites) are made during yarn processing by joining drawn
cotton with other staple fibres, such as polyester or casein.
Why does some clothing shrink in the wash?Learn why cotton fabric shrinks.
See all videos for this article
The procedure for weaving cotton yarn into fabric is similar to that for other fibres.
Cotton looms interlace the tense lengthwise yarns, called warp, with crosswise yarns
called weft, or filling. Warp yarns often are treated chemically to prevent breaking
during weaving.
Political system - Structure, Government, Power | Britannica
Robert Owen (1771–1858) was a prominent Welsh social reformer and one of the founding figures of utopian
socialism and the cooperative movement. His life and ideas were deeply intertwined with the social, economic,
and intellectual shifts of the Industrial Revolution in Britain, which provides important context for
understanding his work and influence.
Early Life and Background
Born in Newtown, Wales, Owen grew up in a time of rapid industrial change. He began his career as a draper’s
apprentice and quickly ascended the ranks to become a successful businessman, moving to Manchester in the
1790s, which was then a booming industrial center. Manchester's harsh working conditions left a profound
impression on Owen, shaping his views on labor, education, and the role of industry in society.
New Lanark: Experiment in Industrial Reform
In 1800, Owen became the manager and part-owner of the New Lanark Mills in Scotland. The mill was
notorious for poor working conditions, but under Owen’s leadership, it became a model of social reform. He
drastically improved conditions for workers by reducing working hours, prohibiting child labor, and providing
education and social services for workers and their families. New Lanark demonstrated that improving the
welfare of workers could still result in economic success, challenging the dominant capitalist belief that harsh
labor conditions were necessary for profit.
Owen introduced progressive reforms that reflected his belief in the importance of environment and education in
shaping human character. He built schools, housing, and recreational facilities, arguing that social problems
could be solved by changing the conditions in which people lived and worked.
Utopian Socialism and Communal Experiments
Owen’s ideas expanded beyond industrial reform to encompass broader social changes. He advocated for what
he called "villages of cooperation"—self-sustaining communities based on communal ownership, cooperation,
and shared labor. In 1825, he attempted to put these ideas into practice in the United States by establishing a
utopian community at New Harmony, Indiana. However, the experiment failed within a few years due to
internal conflicts and practical difficulties, but it left a lasting legacy in cooperative and communal movements.
Owen believed that the root of social problems was the capitalist system and private property, which he thought
fostered inequality, competition, and greed. He argued that humanity could live harmoniously in a system based
on cooperation rather than competition. His vision for a new society made him a precursor to later socialist
thinkers like Karl Marx, although Owen's brand of socialism remained utopian and idealistic, contrasting with
the scientific socialism of later Marxist theory.
Influence on Socialism and the Cooperative Movement
Owen was also a key figure in the early labor movement. He was involved in the founding of the Grand
National Consolidated Trades Union in 1834, one of the first attempts to create a national trade union in Britain.
Though the union collapsed due to government opposition and internal struggles, it marked a significant
moment in the development of labor organizations.
His legacy lives on in the cooperative movement, which took his ideas of collective ownership and democratic
management and applied them to consumer and producer cooperatives. The Rochdale Pioneers, often
considered the founders of the modern cooperative movement, were directly influenced by Owen’s ideas.
Legacy
Although many of Owen’s specific experiments, like New Harmony, were short-lived, his vision of a more
humane and cooperative society has had lasting influence. His ideas laid the groundwork for various social
movements, including labor rights, public education, and socialism. Today, he is remembered as a pioneer of
social reform, advocating for a balance between industrial progress and human well-being. His belief in
education and the betterment of human character through improved social conditions was ahead of its time and
continues to inspire movements focused on social justice and cooperative economics.
