Sep 30, 2021 - Sale 2580

Sale 2580 - Lot 143

Price Realized: $ 1,000
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 600 - $ 900
(INDIANA.) "Circular Addressed to the Friends of Liberal Education" regarding the proposed New Harmony Manual Labor College. 6, [1] printed pages including 2 plans, 10 1/4 x 7 3/4 inches, on 2 folding sheets, with address panel bearing New Harmony postmark on final blank page; mailing folds, minor edge wear, seal incision on final page not affecting text. [New Harmony, IN], [October 1835]
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New Harmony at the southwestern tip of Indiana was the site of two ambitious but doomed utopian experiments, the Harmonists and Owenites, from 1814 to 1827. It then evolved into a more traditionally governed hotbed of intellectual ferment and reform. This circular attempts to launch a new institution of higher learning at New Harmony. It is addressed to the former readers of the Free Enquirer, a radical New York newspaper with roots in New Harmony which published its last issue in June 1835.

The main body of the circular was written 20 August 1835 by the Free Enquirer's co-editor Robert Dale Owen (1801-1877), a future Congressman, and son of the Owenite community's founder Robert Owen. He describes his goals for a liberal non-denominational institution where "literature and science and accomplishment" should not "exclude manual labor. Each pupil should learn a trade, or occupy himself, during a portion of the day, in the farm or garden."

The benefits of New Harmony as the site of such a school (low cost of living, healthful climate, and vibrant intellectual community) are expounded upon at length, as well as the proposed curriculum and facilities. Owen's appeal is followed by the minutes of the school's board of trustees through 3 October 1835. On the final two pages are a detailed plan of the section of New Harmony where the proposed school would be located; and the floor plan for brother David Dale Owen's proposed classroom and laboratory. Although the planning was quite advanced, the school never opened. 4 in OCLC; none others traced at auction.

WITH--a somewhat related pamphlet: Duss, "George Rapp and his Associates (The Harmony Society)," 1914.