ON January 1, 1800, Robert Owen started a new job. He did so not in the normal manner of other people, during his days and during ours. Owen was going to alter the course of human history. And he knew it.
On that day, Owen took over the management of the cotton mills standing on the banks of the River Clyde at New Lanark. Born in Wales in 1771, he had already made his mark there and elsewhere as a textile manufacturer, philanthropist and social reformer.
It was not just a matter of theory – he strove to improve factory working conditions, promote experimental socialistic communities and, for a distant future, seek a collective approach to child rearing, including government control of education.
