New Harmony, Indiana, located on the banks of the Wabash River, is an experience like none other. A community that began over two hundred years ago, New Harmony was first a spiritual sanctuary that later became a haven for international scientists, scholars and educators who sought equality in communal living.
The town's history is really the story of three distinct communities trying to figure out how people should live together. Two of those experiments were deliberate utopian projects. The third鈥攖he one that's still going鈥攅merged from what the first two built.
In 1814, a group of 800 German Pietists from Iptingen, a small town in Baden-W眉rttemberg's Karlsruhe Region, arrived on 30,000 acres of land along the Wabash River. They called it Harmonie. The Harmonie Society, led by George Rapp, had first come to the United States in 1804 seeking religious freedom, initially establishing a community in Butler County, Pennsylvania. After ten years there, they moved to Indiana.
The Harmonists' literal interpretation of biblical text, combined with their reading of current world events, led them to believe that the Second Coming of Jesus Christ was imminent. As a society and as individuals, they pursued Christian perfection through every aspect of their daily conduct. To that end, they created a highly ordered and productive community at New Harmony.
And they were remarkably successful at building things. Within a year of purchasing the land, the town was platted by a professional surveyor. Between 1814 and 1824, the Harmonists constructed over 180 log, frame and brick structures. The community was entirely self-sufficient and produced a wide variety of goods that were recognized worldwide for their fine quality. Harmonist wares were sold throughout the United States and overseas in the British Isles, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Germany. They made everything they needed, including textiles, rope, whiskey and furniture. They built a sophisticated water system. They created gardens that people traveled to see.
In 1824, through what George Rapp believed was divine guidance, he sought a buyer for the entire town to facilitate their relocation back to Pennsylvania. The Harmonists' decade in Indiana had been productive, and they left behind a thriving, ready-made town.
Robert Owen bought it all in 1825. Owen was a wealthy industrialist of Welsh descent who was operating a textile mill in New Lanark, Scotland. He envisioned creating a new kind of society based on education, reason and cooperation. His business partner in this venture was William Maclure, a wealthy businessman and well-respected geologist who shared Owen's vision and attracted many well-known scholars of the early 19th century to New Harmony.
Owen renamed the town New Harmony and invited scientists, educators, artists and reformers to join his "Community of Equality." For a brief moment, it was extraordinary. American naturalist Thomas Say came. So did French naturalist Charles-Alexandre Lesueur. Pestalozzian educators Joseph Neef, Phiquepal d'Arusmont and Madame Marie Duclos Fretageot brought progressive educational methods. Gerard Troost, a Dutch geologist, arrived. Frances Wright, a Scottish-born early feminist, was also drawn to the experiment.
They started schools. They established the first free public library in the United States. They collected geological specimens. They published newspapers: the New Harmony Gazette and The Disseminator of Useful Knowledge. They debated everything.
The Community of Equality as a collective experiment lasted only until 1827, challenged by the complexities of managing diverse personalities, labor organization and agricultural production. But what the community accomplished in those two years and what the people who came here created afterward, changed American culture in lasting ways.
Even after the collective experiment ended, the intellectual energy continued. Many of the scientists, educators and reformers stayed. They kept working, teaching and creating.
William Maclure established schools in various locations adapted to different ages in the late 1820s, including a school for orphans founded in 1827. In the 1840s and 1850s, a number of private schools were established. The School of Industry continued into the 1840s, with some students producing The Disseminator of Useful Knowledge from 1828 to 1841, though not continuously. Robert Dale Owen (one of Robert Owen's sons) and Frances Wright continued publishing the New Harmony Gazette until 1828, when they moved the paper鈥攔etitled the Free Enquirer鈥攖o New York City. In the 1840s three other papers were published. After a gap from 1849, The New Harmony Advertiser began publication in 1858.
Scientific activity flourished in the late 1820s and 1830s. Charles-Alexandre Lesueur and Thomas Say continued their research. When the Maximilian-Bodmer expedition passed through New Harmony in 1832, Prince Maximilian was impressed with the work of both men. The period from 1827 to 1860 saw extensive geological study. Another son of Robert Owen, David Dale Owen, conducted state and federal geological surveys during this time, using New Harmony as his headquarters. He trained many geologists in an unofficial New Harmony field school, establishing connections that influenced the development of the U.S. Geological Survey.
Social and cultural life thrived as well. The Thespian Society was established by Robert Owen's son William Owen in the fall of 1827, giving its first performance in 1828. Local theatrical groups performed in New Harmony off and on until the 1880s, and many touring national theatrical troupes also played in the town. Concerts, balls and lectures were held throughout the period.
Men's clubs included the New Harmony Jockey Club, organized in 1835, where members including Robert Dale Owen and William Owen raced horses on a one-mile track. The club ended in 1839. The Agricultural Society of Posey County was organized in 1835, with membership including several prominent New Harmony families.
The Minerva Society, a literary club for younger women of the town, was founded by Constance Fauntleroy in 1859. It's considered one of the earliest women's clubs in America with a written constitution and by-laws. The Society was disbanded in 1863.
By 1860, most of the scientists and educators had died or left New Harmony, and the Civil War brought changes to scientific and scholarly activities. But what they'd created鈥攖he intellectual culture, the educational innovations, the scientific work鈥攃ontinued to influence American thought and practice.
New Harmony's history could have been lost. Buildings deteriorate. Collections scatter. Communities move on. But in the mid-20th century, Jane Blaffer Owen arrived in New Harmony and saw something worth preservingand reimagining.
Owen, a philanthropist with deep resources and deeper vision, didn't just want to preserve old buildings. She wanted to create a living place where historical significance and contemporary thought could exist together. She funded major restoration projects, commissioned contemporary architecture that complemented rather than competed with historic structures and supported programs that brought scholars, artists and spiritual seekers to New Harmony.
Her work transformed the preservation landscape. The Roofless Church, designed by Philip Johnson. The Atheneum, designed by Richard Meier. New gardens and public spaces. All of it was designed to honor New Harmony's experimental past while creating space for ongoing exploration and dialogue.
The Robert Lee Blaffer Foundation continues this legacy today, supporting preservation work, educational programs and community initiatives that keep New Harmony vital as both a historic site and a living town.
In the 1970s, Historic New Harmony, Inc. formed with support from Lilly Endowment to acquire and restore significant properties. That organization eventually became part of the 缅北强奸 in 1985, establishing Historic New Harmony as a university program dedicated to preservation, education and community engagement.
Today, Historic New Harmony is deepening how we interpret and share one of New Harmony's most essential and sometimes overlooked dimensions: the role of religion and spirituality in shaping these communities.
Both the Harmonists and Owenites were fundamentally concerned with belief systems, though in very different ways. The Harmonists came seeking religious freedom and created a community organized around their faith. The Owenites questioned traditional religious structures while still grappling with questions of meaning, morality and human purpose. Understanding what these communities tried to do requires understanding what they believed and why it mattered to them.
With support from Lilly Endowment's Religion and Cultural Institutions Initiative, we're working to strengthen how we portray these religious and spiritual dimensions. We're renovating historic buildings to create permanent exhibition space and a community learning center. We're developing new interpretive programs that explore how religious freedom, spiritual seeking and diverse belief systems shaped New Harmony's history and continue to influence the town today. We're hosting an interfaith festival that brings people together to explore questions of faith, meaning and community. And we're creating educational resources that help students and visitors understand the complex role religion played in 19th-century reform movements and intentional communities.
This work centers on acknowledging that religion and spirituality were central to why people came here, what they tried to create and the conversations they started that still matter today.
New Harmony matters because of what the people who came here created, what they learned, what they contributed and what they left behind.
The Harmonists demonstrated that intentional communities could thrive economically and create lasting infrastructure. The Owenites showed that education and intellectual exchange could transform culture, that ideas could spread far beyond their original context and that brief experiments could have long-lasting impacts. The scientists and educators who worked here influenced American geology, natural history and education in ways that rippled far beyond this small town.
The schools Owen and Maclure started influenced American public education for generations. The U.S. Geological Survey has roots here. So do professional geological education and important developments in natural history. Free public education, women's education and kindergarten in America. New Harmony touched all of it.
And the generations since鈥攊ncluding the preservation work led by Jane Blaffer Owen and continued by Historic New Harmony today鈥攈ave shown that a small town can preserve complicated history while remaining a living community.
New Harmony's history raises questions that still matter: How do people with different beliefs live together? What role should education play in society? What does religious freedom mean in practice? Can communities be intentional about their values? What's worth preserving, and how do you do it without treating history as something static and finished?
We're still exploring the answers.