Editing New Harmony, Indiana (section)

==== Public service and social reform ====
[[Robert Dale Owen]], eldest son of Robert Owen, was a social reformer and intellectual of national importance. At New Harmony, he taught school and co-edited and published the ''New Harmony Gazette'' with Frances Wright.<ref name=IHScoll/><ref name=Walker23>Walker, p . 23.</ref> Owen later moved to New York. In 1830 he published "Moral Philosophy," the first treatise in the United States to support birth control, and returned to New Harmony in 1834.<ref name=Walker23/> From 1836 to 1838, and in 1851, Owen served in the Indiana legislature and was also a delegate to the state's constitutional convention of 1850.<ref name=IHScoll/> Owen was an advocate for women's rights, free public education, and opposed slavery. As a member of the [[U. S. House of Representatives]] from 1843 to 1847, Owen introduced a bill in 1846 that established the [[Smithsonian Institution]].<ref>Wilson, p. 195&ndash;197.</ref> He also served as chairman of the Smithsonian Building Committee. He arranged for his brother, David Dale Owen, to sample a large number of possible building stones for the Smithsonian Castle.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://faculty.evansville.edu/ck6/bstud/smithson.html|title=SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, WORLD'S LARGEST MUSEUM COMPLEX|website=faculty.evansville.edu}}</ref>  From 1852 to 1858 Owen held the diplomatic position of charge d'affairs (1853–1858) in [[Naples, Italy|Naples]], where he began studying spiritualism.<ref name=Wilson19697>Wilson, p. 196&ndash;197.</ref> Owen's book, ''[https://web.archive.org/web/20170102082340/http://www.northamptonspiritualists.org/Books/FootfallsRDOwen.pdf Footfalls on the Boundary of Another World]'' (1860), aroused something of a literary sensation. Among his critics in the ''Boston Investigator'' and at home in the ''New Harmony Advertiser'' were John and [[Margaret Chappellsmith]], he formerly an artist for David Dale Owen's geological publications, and she a former Owenite lecturer.{{citation needed|date=July 2012}} Robert Dales Owen died at Lake George, New York, in 1877.<ref name=Wilson19697/>

[[Frances Wright]] (1795&ndash;1852) came to New Harmony in 1824, where she co-edited and wrote for the ''New Harmony Gazette'' with Robert Dale Owen. In 1825 she established an experimental settlement at Nashoba, Tennessee, that allowed African American slaves to work to gain their freedom, but the community failed. A liberal leader in the "free-thought movement," Wright opposed slavery, advocated woman's suffrage, birth control, and free public education. Wright and Robert Dale Owen moved their newspaper to New York City in 1829 and published it as the ''Free Enquirer''.<ref name=IHScoll/><ref name=KimberlingWr>Clark Kimberling, [http://faculty.evansville.edu/ck6/bstud/wright.html "Frances Wright"], University of Evansville. Retrieved June 20, 2012.</ref> Wright married William Philquepal d'Arusmont, a Pestalozzian educator she met at New Harmony. The couple also lived in [[Paris, France]], and in [[Cincinnati, Ohio]], where they divorced in 1850. Wright died in Cincinnati in 1852.<ref name=KimberlingWr/><ref>Britannica Online, [http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/649474/Frances-Wright "Frances Wright"]. Retrieved June 20, 2012.</ref>