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Speaker 1: Happy Saturday. This week, we talked about Narcisse Montreal's submarines,

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Speaker 1: and we mentioned his affiliation with a man named Ettien

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Speaker 1: Cab And there's probably going to be an episode on

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Speaker 1: Etsian Caba in the near future unless something goes very

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Speaker 1: wrong in my research. But Etienkab was also connected to

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Speaker 1: somebody we have talked about on the show before, and

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Speaker 1: that was Robert Owen. We talked about Robert Owen in

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Speaker 1: the later part of our episode on the communal settlements

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Speaker 1: in New Harmony, Indiana, that was part of our live

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Speaker 1: show at the Indiana Historical Society back in twenty nineteen.

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Speaker 1: So this live episode originally came out July thirty first,

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Speaker 1: twenty nineteen. There's also mention of the boatload of knowledge

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Speaker 1: in this live episode. We did do a whole episode

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Speaker 1: on that that came out on August fifth of twenty nineteen.

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Speaker 2: So enjoy.

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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class of iHeartRadio. Hello,

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Speaker 1: and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly Frye and I'm

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Speaker 1: Tracy V. Wilson and Tracy we recently went on a

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Speaker 1: little trip we did. We visited the Indiana Historical Society

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Speaker 1: at their invitation, we did a live podcast there. We

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Speaker 1: did that show actually took place the night before their

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Speaker 1: Midwestern Roots Conference began, and it was such an honor

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Speaker 1: to kick off the festivities and they being in Indianapolis,

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Speaker 1: they asked us to do something Indiana related and we

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Speaker 1: ended up talking about the village slash town of New

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Speaker 1: Harmony and a couple of interesting communal living experiments that

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Speaker 1: were conducted there. Yes, we did not get to go

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Speaker 1: to New Harmony while we were there. It was a

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Speaker 1: very fast trip, but there are lots of things about

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Speaker 1: it online. You can have a lot of experience through

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Speaker 1: all of these documents and records and pictures and cool stuff. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: the Indiana Historical Society has a really impressive digital archive online,

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Speaker 1: including things not just about New Harmony, but about a

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Speaker 1: lot of different topics. So we encourage people to absolutely

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Speaker 1: go explore. But for now, we'll hop it right into

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Speaker 1: our live show. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm

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Speaker 1: Holly Frye and I'm Tracy V. Wilson. Today we're talking

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Speaker 1: about the town of New Harmony and in the window

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Speaker 1: from eighteen fifteen to eighteen twenty seven, there were two

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Speaker 1: communal society attempts there in the town, one right after

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Speaker 1: the other, one way more successful than the other. But

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Speaker 1: to talk about all that, we actually have to start

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Speaker 1: in the eighteenth century in Germany and talk about George Rapp.

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Speaker 1: George Rapp was born Johann George Rapp on November first,

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Speaker 1: seventeen fifty seven in Iptingen, which is in the Duchy

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Speaker 1: of Wurtemberg, Germany.

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Speaker 2: And as he was.

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Speaker 1: Growing up he learned to be a weaver. He got

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Speaker 1: me married to Christina Benzinger in seventeen eighty three, and

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Speaker 1: then they had a son named Johannes, who went more

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Speaker 1: often by John later on, so we talk about John.

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Speaker 1: That's who that is. And they also had a daughter

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Speaker 1: named Rosina. Yeah, unfortunately we don't know a whole lot

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Speaker 1: about Rosina.

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Speaker 2: I can't imagine why.

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Speaker 1: Her One of her children shows up a little bit

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Speaker 1: later in the record. We won't talk about her in

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Speaker 1: this podcast, but her offspring becomes a little bit more

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Speaker 1: important to the story. But we really don't know much

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Speaker 1: about their daughter. But by the seventeen eighties Rap had

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Speaker 1: kind of moved away from textiles as a vocation and

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Speaker 1: into his growing religious passion, and he had started preaching.

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Speaker 1: He was Lutheran in terms of his upbringing, but he

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Speaker 1: ended up becoming a Pietist, and in very simplistic terms,

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Speaker 1: that is an ideology that focuses on the individual's religious

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Speaker 1: experience as guided by the Bible, and the movement of

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Speaker 1: Pietism really began out of this perception of shortcomings of

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Speaker 1: the Church and its doctrine and the formality of it

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Speaker 1: and its followers. Pietism's followers really believed that there needed

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Speaker 1: to be reformation within the Church so that they centered

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Speaker 1: theology again on truly living a Christian life and looking

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Speaker 1: to the Bible as the one true authority rather than

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Speaker 1: any sort of hierarchy put together.

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Speaker 2: By the Church. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: So, because of this conflict between the established church and

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Speaker 1: his personal beliefs, Rap ultimately separated from the Lutherans in

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Speaker 1: seventeen eighty five, and he didn't go by himself. He

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Speaker 1: had a small group of followers who started meeting at

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Speaker 1: his home, which this was the eighteenth century in Germany

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Speaker 1: that was not legal, and their numbers got bigger over time,

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Speaker 1: even though they were having these illicit religious meetings. By

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Speaker 1: the early seventeen nineties, the little their little gatherings as

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Speaker 1: they had grown, had become very concerning to the church,

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Speaker 1: and the church was worried about this separatist group and

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Speaker 1: the influence they were having, and they considered it to

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Speaker 1: be undermining the social order. And Rapp also believed that

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Speaker 1: he was a prophet, something which he stated openly, and

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Speaker 1: that was essentially a pretty big piece of rebellion against

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Speaker 1: the established Lutheran Church, and he was actually brought before

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Speaker 1: a church commission in seventeen ninety one on charges of heresy,

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Speaker 1: and in his testimony he said to them quite plainly, quote,

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Speaker 1: I am a prophet and I am called to be one.

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Speaker 1: He was imprisoned briefly, so that's how that worked out.

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Speaker 1: But this actually had the opposite of the commission's desired effect.

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Speaker 1: In imprisoning him, more people started to take notice of him,

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Speaker 1: and as a consequence, his followers just grew in number.

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Speaker 1: So in an effort to control this problem, they told

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Speaker 1: rap in seventeen eighty nine that he needed to submit

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Speaker 1: a formal statement of faith, and that instruction didn't actually

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Speaker 1: come from the church, it came from the government of Wurtemberg.

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Speaker 1: Because the church and the state were really deeply interconnected,

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Speaker 1: as was the case in so much of Europe at

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Speaker 1: that point. That was actually one of the things that

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Speaker 1: Rap and his followers really objected to. Yeah, the writing

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Speaker 1: that Rap submitted. He did make his formal declaration, but

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Speaker 1: it was really not what the government or the church

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Speaker 1: was looking for. Rap took advantage of this moment said

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Speaker 1: you want to know what I think, Here's what I think.

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Speaker 1: So he stated quite clearly that while he respected the government,

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Speaker 1: he was very respectful. He was like, I get it.

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Speaker 1: But my followers and I who started calling themselves the Harmonists,

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Speaker 1: you'll also see that mentioned as the Rappites, and we

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Speaker 1: use those two terms pretty interchangeably in this episode. They

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Speaker 1: felt that people should just have freedom to form their

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Speaker 1: own congregations as they wished, without the involvement of any

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Speaker 1: civic body or rules from the government. And additionally, though

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Speaker 1: his statement indicated that the Harmonists really didn't have a

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Speaker 1: whole lot of use for some pretty standard social norms

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Speaker 1: and customs that were part of government and church practice.

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Speaker 1: So they didn't want to be baptized infants because they

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Speaker 1: believed in believer baptism.

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Speaker 2: Later in life.

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Speaker 1: They also did not believe in serving in the military,

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Speaker 1: so that was another big problem. You can imagine how

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Speaker 1: that went over Over the next four years, the relationship

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Speaker 1: between the Lutheran government of Wurtemberg and George Ratt just

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Speaker 1: became increasingly tense. And then in eighteen oh three, Rapp

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Speaker 1: was questioned one more time. This time the authorities told

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Speaker 1: him that he was not allowed to speak outside of

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Speaker 1: his town. That seems like an odd instruction, but their

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Speaker 1: thinking was that he had converted everybody that he was

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Speaker 1: going to persuade within the town, so if they could

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Speaker 1: just stop him from going to find new people, it

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Speaker 1: would at least stop the spread of this dangerous rhetoric.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's an interesting it's a solutionisting, but he was

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Speaker 2: so defiant.

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Speaker 1: They kind of knew he wasn't going to stop now preaching,

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Speaker 1: so they were like, just don't go outside city limits.

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Speaker 1: I feel like those were like rules my parents gave,

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Speaker 1: and don't go outside city limits. We won't pick you

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Speaker 1: up from the jail.

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Speaker 2: Anywhere but town.

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Speaker 1: Look, I was a wild child, but this was the

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Speaker 1: end of life in Germany for rap so he set

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Speaker 1: out for the United States. He landed in Philadelphia in

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Speaker 1: October of eighteen oh three, and he had his son

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Speaker 1: John with him as well as two other men who

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Speaker 1: were part of his separatist group, kind of scouting the

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Speaker 1: situation out. So this show is about new Harmony here

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Speaker 1: in Indiana. But the village in Indiana was not the

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Speaker 1: first rap Bite settlement in the United States. And this

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Speaker 1: precursor that they started with was the template that Raptness

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Speaker 1: followers used to establish the Indiana Harmony. So we're going

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Speaker 1: to talk about how it came to be founded and

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Speaker 1: what those rules were, because then they carry over to

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Speaker 1: new harmony here. And the choice of the US for

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Speaker 1: this new settlement was based on raps interpretation of the Bible,

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Speaker 1: the passage in Revelation twelve, which reads quote and the

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Speaker 1: woman fled into the wilderness where she hath a place

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Speaker 1: prepared for God had convinced him that the unsettled land

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Speaker 1: in North America was where he and his followers should

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Speaker 1: make their new home. Rap had hoped that he could

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Speaker 1: either get a land grant from the US government or

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Speaker 1: a provision for the purchase of some discounted land. He

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Speaker 1: did not really understand the process involved. This was well

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Speaker 1: before things like the Homestead Act that made it a

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Speaker 1: lot easier for people to get land Congress had to

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Speaker 1: approve either of those options. Rap did not anticipate that

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Speaker 1: as being part of it, and he wasn't really dissuaded

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Speaker 1: when he found it out. He had been hoping though, that,

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Speaker 1: like even though people were telling him, no, Congress has

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Speaker 1: to do that for you, honey, but he was hoping

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Speaker 1: that he really had something special going on and that

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Speaker 1: he could be given a parcel of land to start

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Speaker 1: his community without having to mess with all that red tape.

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Speaker 1: And so his big idea was that he was going

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Speaker 1: to go straight to President Thomas Jefferson, which he did.

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Speaker 1: He went and spoke with Jefferson on July twelfth of

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Speaker 1: eighteen oh four, and he explained his plans in the

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Speaker 1: situation and what he had come from. And while the

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Speaker 1: President thought this whole conversation was pretty compelling, he also

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Speaker 1: deferred to Congress and he clarified for Rap that that

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Speaker 1: was the only governing body that could.

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Speaker 2: Grant him land.

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Speaker 1: Jefferson did, though, use his influence. He wrote some letters

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Speaker 1: so that there would be an offer of land and

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Speaker 1: that offer would be protected. He had give it made

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Speaker 1: sure that Rap had this option to purchase a forty

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Speaker 1: thousand acre township here in Indiana. Rap did not have

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Speaker 1: enough money for that one at the time, so that

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Speaker 1: one did not happen. So part of the reason that

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Speaker 1: Rap was willing to take his request directly to the

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Speaker 1: President was because he needed to get things settled as

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Speaker 1: quickly as possible. He had nothing to send back to Germany.

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Speaker 1: He had nothing to return to there. His estate had

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Speaker 1: been seized by the Wurtemberg government, and he was considered

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Speaker 1: to be a fugitive, so he could not just go.

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Speaker 2: Back, no, and he didn't want to.

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Speaker 1: He only had those few people with him when he

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Speaker 1: traveled to North America, but he had already written back

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Speaker 1: to Germany that was like I am never coming back.

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Speaker 1: He didn't want to return to Europe at all. He

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Speaker 1: really thought like he was where God wanted him to be.

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Speaker 1: And he also in those letters spoke about the potential

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Speaker 1: of the US settlement, and as a consequence, more of

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Speaker 1: his followers were already on the way. They were ready

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Speaker 1: to set up this new utopia, and they started arriving

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Speaker 1: in Baltimore aboard the ship Aurora on July fourth of

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Speaker 1: eighteen oh four, and two more groups of Harmonists followed

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Speaker 1: in the next six weeks. Aboard the Atlantic and the Margaretta.

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Speaker 1: So that meant he had an urgent need to have

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Speaker 1: a home for all these new arrivals, and without the

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Speaker 1: assistance that he was hoping for from the US government,

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Speaker 1: so Rap wound up purchasing several thousand acres of land

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Speaker 1: north of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in Butler County that cost him

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Speaker 1: a little more than ten thousand dollars, and he had

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Speaker 1: decided that Pennsylvania, Virginia, Kentucky, or Maryland would all be

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Speaker 1: good options for where they could set things up, but

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Speaker 1: this particular piece of land was not his first choice

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Speaker 1: of location. Nevertheless, though, the Harmonists pulled all of their

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Speaker 1: resources to try to make a go of it, and

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Speaker 1: they finalized that purchase on December twenty second of eighteen

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Speaker 1: oh four. Not everybody was pleased with this particular Pennsylvania land, though,

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Speaker 1: and some folks did leave Raps group and go strike

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Speaker 1: out on their own. On February fifteenth of eighteen oh five,

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Speaker 1: Rap officially founded the Harmony Society that became the governing

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Speaker 1: body of the town that he founded, Harmony, Pennsylvania, and

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Speaker 1: the society maintained all of their documents in the official

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Speaker 1: language of the society as designated by George Rapp, which

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Speaker 1: was German. He was like, we'll talk about this morn

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Speaker 1: a minute, but like christ is coming, you guys, you

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Speaker 1: don't have to learn another language, where literally, really he

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Speaker 1: was like, don't, let's not waste time with that, Like,

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Speaker 1: just let's keep what we know.

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Speaker 2: This is going to be more efficient.

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Speaker 1: He also established himself sort of in this document as

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Speaker 1: the ultimate leader, and when you start looking at biographies

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Speaker 1: of rap and stories about him and how his society worked,

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Speaker 1: he is characterized in two very very different ways. There

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Speaker 1: are some where he is described as this very benevolent

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Speaker 1: and loving father figure, you know, kind of like a

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Speaker 1: hippie love figure that wants to start a cool community everybody,

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Speaker 1: and then in others he's really represented much more as

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Speaker 1: a manipulative dictator who's like, well, I'm going to America

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Speaker 1: because Europe is not going to happen for us.

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Speaker 2: You'll die if you stay, you should come.

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Speaker 1: Probably those are two sides of the same coin, and

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Speaker 1: he may have been both of those things depending on

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Speaker 1: who he was dealing with and what topic was at hand,

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Speaker 1: but in all matters, no matter whether they were just

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Speaker 1: the logistics and finances of the community, or matters of faith,

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Speaker 1: or how members of the group would interact with outsiders,

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Speaker 1: including how they voted. Later on, Rapp was deferred to.

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Speaker 1: He made all the decisions and his word was absolutely final.

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Speaker 1: So if you signed on to Harmonies Articles of Association,

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Speaker 1: you relinquished all personal assets to the community and you

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Speaker 1: promised to live by the community's rules. The number of

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Speaker 1: initial members who first signed on with this charter was

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Speaker 1: first established. That estimate varies different accounts site anywhere from

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Speaker 1: thirty one to one hundred families, So that was as

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Speaker 1: many as four hundred to five hundred people. Yeah, some

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Speaker 1: were like tracking by families, some were trying to track

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Speaker 1: by individuals, and I think that leads to some confusion

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Speaker 1: in what those numbers really were. But after that initial

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Speaker 1: charter was established, any new prospective members had to agree

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Speaker 1: to a trial period which is usually like six to

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Speaker 1: eight weeks before they could become full members. And the

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Speaker 1: charter initial included a provision for any members who left

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Speaker 1: the group that were in good standing to be given

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Speaker 1: a sum of cash when they left, so that they

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Speaker 1: were getting a little something back of what they had

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Speaker 1: put in. And also they could start their life elsewhere

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Speaker 1: without having to go from zero. We're going to talk

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Speaker 1: about what happened to that little plan later because it

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Speaker 1: didn't work out so good.

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Speaker 2: I bet you can get.

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Speaker 1: So the group quickly set to work. They cleared about

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Speaker 1: one hundred and fifty acres of land in just the

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Speaker 1: first year. They built an estimated fifty log homes, plus

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Speaker 1: a mill, and of course a church. There was also

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Speaker 1: a committee of elders hand chosen by Rap to help

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Speaker 1: lead the adjustment into more communal living. I feel like

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Speaker 1: this is the first place that they really diverge from

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Speaker 1: all the utopian communities that we have ever talked about

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Speaker 1: in that they actually showed up and got some things done. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and there was a transition team. Like I like the

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Speaker 1: idea that they recognized that these people were all part

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Speaker 1: of a group in Germany, but they weren't accustomed to

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Speaker 1: this idea of life we all lived together in one

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Speaker 1: big community.

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Speaker 2: And share our resources.

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Speaker 1: So he did have people that were like, here, we're

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Speaker 1: going to get you through this transition, which is probably

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Speaker 1: why his communities worked better than some others. Two years

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Speaker 1: into this communal living effort, the Harmonists in pace with

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Speaker 1: the second Great Awakening, which was sweeping through the US,

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Speaker 1: had their own reawakening. Beginning in eighteen oh seven, the

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Speaker 1: belief among Rap's followers that Christ was soon to return

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Speaker 1: to Earth took on a much more immediate tone. Rap

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Speaker 1: had come to the conclusion that the Napoleonic Wars, which

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Speaker 1: had started in eighteen oh three, were a sign of

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Speaker 1: the eminent return of the Son of God, and that

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Speaker 1: was because he saw Napoleon Bonaparte as an anti Christ.

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Speaker 1: I said this to Holly while we were planning this episode.

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Speaker 1: But we just got back from Paris not long ago

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Speaker 1: and we saw Napoleon's tomb, and I was unprepared for Napoleon,

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Speaker 1: who you know, we've always learned as a guy that

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Speaker 1: we had a lot of wars with in a giant's

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Speaker 1: tomb surrounded by angel statues. France definitely did not think

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Speaker 1: he was an Antichrist. So Rap thought that this guy's

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Speaker 1: rise to power really signaled the end of Europe in

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Speaker 1: the world order. Yeah, that was one of the many

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Speaker 1: reasons he was like, Europe is not going to exist

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Speaker 1: for long. Come on. Mysticism was also a huge part

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Speaker 1: of the Rapite interpretation of scripture, so George rapp and

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Speaker 1: his followers, but again he was always really leading the ideology,

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Speaker 1: were always watching world events. He was kind of a

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Speaker 1: news junkie, and they were watching events closely to see

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Speaker 1: what they might portend because he was always relating what

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Speaker 1: was going on around them and throughout the world too,

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Speaker 1: what was in the Bible, and trying to kind of

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Speaker 1: parse out any deeper meaning he could. And the group

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Speaker 1: often discussed these matters as part of their religious practice.

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Speaker 1: It basically have like evening services and discussion where they

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Speaker 1: would talk about, Hey, this thing happened over here, this

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Speaker 1: might mean this tying all of these very events, like

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Speaker 1: we said to biblical prophecy. So the Rappites were millennialists.

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Speaker 1: They believed that the Son of God was going to

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Speaker 1: appear once again in human form and then rule the

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Speaker 1: world as his kingdom for a thousand years of peace,

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Speaker 1: and that this was going to start at any moment.

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Speaker 1: So they sought to purify themselves in preparation. So soon

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Speaker 1: there was no tobacco use in harmony, Rap's followers shifted

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Speaker 1: to a celibate life. The end times are coming, you

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Speaker 1: don't need to have any babies prior to this decision.

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Speaker 1: For celibacy. There had been a number of marriages in Harmony,

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Speaker 1: and George's son John had actually been one of the

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Speaker 1: last to get married in Harmony, but even married couples

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Speaker 1: were encouraged to abstain from sexual activity and to live

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Speaker 1: as brothers and sisters of faith. So John rap incidentally

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Speaker 1: clashed with his father during this time. The cartoon that

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Speaker 1: just in my head was like if one of my

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Speaker 1: parents pulled that, and I'd be like a world of

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Speaker 1: no jan and Ron.

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Speaker 2: This isn't gonna happen.

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Speaker 1: But yeah, So John and George had some problems and

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Speaker 1: John left Harmony. He moved to Ohio, and he and

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Speaker 1: his father, George later became embroiled in a legal battle

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Speaker 1: over the money that John had contributed to Harmony to

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Speaker 1: the trust, which he wanted back, and several other members

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Speaker 1: that had decided that they were going to leave joined

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Speaker 1: this suit seeking their money as well. All of them

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Speaker 1: after kind of having this drag out for a while

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Speaker 1: because it seemed like they were not in good standing

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Speaker 1: per George's assessment, thus they were not entitled to that,

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Speaker 1: but they eventually abandoned legal action. They just got tired

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Speaker 1: of fighting and they gave up on ever reclaiming their assets.

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Speaker 1: But John did go back and rejoin his father's community,

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Speaker 1: although it was not for terribly long because he died

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Speaker 1: when he was still a very young man in his

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Speaker 1: late twenties, and that happened in eighteen twelve. We will

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Speaker 1: get right back to our New Harmony live show at

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Speaker 1: the Indiana Historical Society in just a moment, but first

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Speaker 1: we're going to pause and have a quick sponsor break.

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Speaker 1: So George Rapp was setting up this whole thing. The

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Speaker 1: idea was that the millennium was coming, and there were

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Speaker 1: naturally gonna be some expenses related to the second coming.

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Speaker 1: Rap knew they might have to travel to New Jerusalem

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Speaker 1: with all of his followers so that they could meet

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Speaker 1: Christ and present themselves, and that was just one for another,

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Speaker 1: there were concerns that there was going to be global

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Speaker 1: instability leading up to this prophesied return that might put

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Speaker 1: them in a position where it would be pretty good

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Speaker 1: to have some ready cash, a little financial liquidity to

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Speaker 1: get through, and the Harmonists also wanted to have money

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Speaker 1: to help support this new world order, so to that end,

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Speaker 1: a fund was started for donations in coin, and that

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Speaker 1: was a fund that Rap managed almost entirely on his own.

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Speaker 1: Uh So, while sexual activity and other pleasures were completely denounced,

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Speaker 1: financial success was aoka seen in a completely different light,

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Speaker 1: the logic being that it could be.

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Speaker 2: Used in service of faith.

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Speaker 1: And this is the second way that these folks are

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Speaker 1: totally different from every other utopian experiment we've ever talked about.

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Speaker 1: Like money's cool, gonna have a lot of it. So,

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Speaker 1: even as the Harmonists became more and more settled in

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Speaker 1: Butler County, there were some conflicts that arose. Rapp was

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Speaker 1: really think of thinking of other locations that might be better,

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Speaker 1: and as early as eighteen oh six he was submitting

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Speaker 1: new requests to the government for different land. And one

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Speaker 1: of the things that he and the Harmonists had wanted

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Speaker 1: when they had emigrated from Germany to North America was

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Speaker 1: to cultivate vineyards and orchards, and this Pennsylvania land that

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Speaker 1: they were on was just not working out in that regard,

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Speaker 1: and it was also not in a spot were exporting

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Speaker 1: anything that they did grow could be done at the

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Speaker 1: level that they needed to keep growing. So they were

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Speaker 1: just a little bit too geographically isolated, and he thought

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Speaker 1: they weren't going to continue flourishing if they stayed there. Yeah,

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00:22:14,320 --> 00:22:16,600
Speaker 1: that land was near a river, but it was a

401
00:22:16,680 --> 00:22:19,359
Speaker 1: very shallow river. It was not really like going to

402
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Speaker 1: support heavy duty irrigation, and they couldn't start shipping things.

403
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Speaker 1: And additionally, as the area around that settlement grew more populated,

404
00:22:27,680 --> 00:22:30,760
Speaker 1: the Harmonists found that, for one, their new neighbors really

405
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Speaker 1: did not understand their community, and they were particularly suspicious

406
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Speaker 1: of how wealthy the Harmonists seemed to be.

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Speaker 2: They did not live like poppers.

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Speaker 1: They had nice things, you know, people that visited would

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Speaker 1: comment on how beautiful everything was and how you know,

410
00:22:46,240 --> 00:22:50,080
Speaker 1: well appointed the rooms were and stuff. So the Rabbites

411
00:22:50,119 --> 00:22:52,760
Speaker 1: also had this little problem where they refused to participate

412
00:22:52,800 --> 00:22:56,240
Speaker 1: in the War of eighteen twelve and they disregarded draft notices.

413
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Speaker 1: They were fined for it, and they paid those fines,

414
00:22:59,240 --> 00:23:02,399
Speaker 1: but other pole in the state really started to regard

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Speaker 1: them with a lot of distrust. So in eighteen fourteen

416
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Speaker 1: they made the decision to head west after Rapid sent

417
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Speaker 1: a group out to scout for some possible new locations,

418
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Speaker 1: and the Indiana Territory offered better climate for the crops

419
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Speaker 1: that they wanted to grow. They could get a bigger

420
00:23:17,200 --> 00:23:19,960
Speaker 1: piece of land than they had back in Butler County

421
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Speaker 1: and Harmony, Pennsylvania. The whole thing was sold to a

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Speaker 1: Mennonite named Abraham Ziggler, who paid one hundred thousand dollars

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Speaker 1: for it in eighteen fourteen. Y'all, that's that was ten

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Speaker 1: times more than he bought the land for. Yes, but

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Speaker 1: he had improved it. I feel like we just did

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Speaker 1: history property hunters, but.

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Speaker 2: I don't like the color.

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Speaker 1: I don't do you guys watch shows and get frustrated

429
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Speaker 1: by those people that don't know that paint Israel.

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Speaker 2: Just paint the room.

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Speaker 1: It makes me crazy. So in eighteen fifteen, New Harmony,

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00:24:01,960 --> 00:24:06,399
Speaker 1: Indiana was officially founded on the Wabash River. As an aside,

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Speaker 1: you will often see this discussed simply as Harmony without

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Speaker 1: the new. That was Rap's intent to just call it

435
00:24:12,000 --> 00:24:14,879
Speaker 1: Harmony again, but the new got added over time to

436
00:24:14,920 --> 00:24:18,600
Speaker 1: distinguish between the two locations and in reference to both

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Speaker 1: the first and second settlements. Depending on what document you

438
00:24:21,200 --> 00:24:24,040
Speaker 1: look at, sometimes Harmony has a Y and sometimes an

439
00:24:24,040 --> 00:24:24,400
Speaker 1: I e.

440
00:24:24,600 --> 00:24:26,320
Speaker 2: Just FYI if you go looking.

441
00:24:26,680 --> 00:24:29,320
Speaker 1: So wrap in. The Harmonists put a lot of work

442
00:24:29,440 --> 00:24:32,760
Speaker 1: to turn this riverfront land, which at that point was

443
00:24:32,880 --> 00:24:34,520
Speaker 1: unsettled into a village.

444
00:24:34,560 --> 00:24:35,800
Speaker 2: They felled trees.

445
00:24:35,480 --> 00:24:37,920
Speaker 1: Again and cut them into lumber to use for construction.

446
00:24:38,440 --> 00:24:40,720
Speaker 1: They dug out clay from the ground to make bricks

447
00:24:40,760 --> 00:24:44,439
Speaker 1: for the same purpose. It was really arduous work, and

448
00:24:44,680 --> 00:24:46,680
Speaker 1: first they had to build kind of a pre settlement

449
00:24:46,720 --> 00:24:49,080
Speaker 1: for everybody to live on. While they were building the

450
00:24:49,200 --> 00:24:52,840
Speaker 1: larger village, they also established farmland, and they were able

451
00:24:52,880 --> 00:24:55,639
Speaker 1: to cultivate that vineyard and the fruit crops that they

452
00:24:55,680 --> 00:24:59,240
Speaker 1: had been wanting the whole time. So Father Rap's home

453
00:24:59,320 --> 00:25:01,680
Speaker 1: was in the center town and everything kind of radiated

454
00:25:01,720 --> 00:25:05,320
Speaker 1: out from it. There were four dormitories built adjacent to it,

455
00:25:05,840 --> 00:25:09,400
Speaker 1: each of which could house sixty to eighty residents. There

456
00:25:09,400 --> 00:25:12,200
Speaker 1: were also individual homes, and each street had a water

457
00:25:12,280 --> 00:25:14,840
Speaker 1: well and an oven that were there for communal use.

458
00:25:15,320 --> 00:25:17,840
Speaker 1: And there were common use plants like herbs that were

459
00:25:17,840 --> 00:25:20,119
Speaker 1: grown in public spaces and anyone could just come and

460
00:25:20,160 --> 00:25:23,240
Speaker 1: take them as needed. Of course, there were some difficulties

461
00:25:23,280 --> 00:25:26,320
Speaker 1: in this move. Malaria was still really common in parts

462
00:25:26,359 --> 00:25:28,480
Speaker 1: of the US at this point, so malaria and other

463
00:25:28,560 --> 00:25:32,280
Speaker 1: disease claimed the lives of a significant number of harmonists

464
00:25:32,320 --> 00:25:35,000
Speaker 1: in that first year, and then in the first years

465
00:25:35,000 --> 00:25:38,200
Speaker 1: in Indiana, a cemetery had to be established a lot

466
00:25:38,280 --> 00:25:40,720
Speaker 1: sooner than they were planning to have to deal with

467
00:25:40,800 --> 00:25:43,840
Speaker 1: these mortalities. And a thing that's super fascinating to me

468
00:25:43,880 --> 00:25:46,439
Speaker 1: about the cemetery is that it is on the site

469
00:25:46,480 --> 00:25:50,240
Speaker 1: of native mounds that date back to the Middle Woodland period.

470
00:25:50,320 --> 00:25:53,480
Speaker 1: So there was like two thousand year old mounds where

471
00:25:53,520 --> 00:25:57,000
Speaker 1: the cemetery went. Yeah, we don't know what the logicalistic

472
00:25:57,040 --> 00:26:00,239
Speaker 1: to the best of my knowledge, but as this new

473
00:26:00,240 --> 00:26:03,800
Speaker 1: community began to grow, rap was pretty smart in that

474
00:26:04,240 --> 00:26:07,280
Speaker 1: he knew that to survive they needed to diversify, and

475
00:26:08,000 --> 00:26:10,280
Speaker 1: they wanted to do this so that they could ensure

476
00:26:10,320 --> 00:26:14,240
Speaker 1: their ongoing financial stability as well. So this was a

477
00:26:14,320 --> 00:26:16,400
Speaker 1: lesson that they had learned when they were in Pennsylvania,

478
00:26:16,440 --> 00:26:20,000
Speaker 1: where he eventually saw that the growth and commerce potential

479
00:26:20,080 --> 00:26:21,560
Speaker 1: of the settlement they had there was.

480
00:26:21,520 --> 00:26:23,199
Speaker 2: Finite, and he did not want the same thing to

481
00:26:23,240 --> 00:26:23,800
Speaker 2: happen again.

482
00:26:24,480 --> 00:26:28,320
Speaker 1: So their agricultural efforts were geared not towards subsistence farming

483
00:26:28,320 --> 00:26:31,280
Speaker 1: where they might sell any extra, but to both providing

484
00:26:31,320 --> 00:26:34,639
Speaker 1: the food the community needed and having enough produce to sell.

485
00:26:34,960 --> 00:26:38,680
Speaker 1: They also established mills to process cotton and wool, and

486
00:26:39,440 --> 00:26:42,280
Speaker 1: again for their clothes, but also they were making enough

487
00:26:42,280 --> 00:26:46,360
Speaker 1: to trade. These were essentially little factories, and this made Harmony,

488
00:26:46,440 --> 00:26:51,760
Speaker 1: Indiana prosperous. Yeah, and this prosperity was really in part

489
00:26:51,840 --> 00:26:54,639
Speaker 1: due to this new location. They weren't in a place

490
00:26:54,720 --> 00:26:57,280
Speaker 1: that was heavily populated when they got there. This was

491
00:26:57,400 --> 00:27:01,359
Speaker 1: essentially frontierland, which the US had gained possession of in

492
00:27:01,480 --> 00:27:04,520
Speaker 1: the eighteen oh four Treaty of Vincennes, which read, in part,

493
00:27:05,040 --> 00:27:07,960
Speaker 1: the said Delaware Tribe for the considerations here and after

494
00:27:08,080 --> 00:27:11,959
Speaker 1: mentioned relinquishes to United States forever all their right and

495
00:27:12,000 --> 00:27:14,680
Speaker 1: the title to the tract of country which lies between

496
00:27:14,720 --> 00:27:18,240
Speaker 1: the Ohio and Wabash rivers and below the tracks seated

497
00:27:18,320 --> 00:27:20,800
Speaker 1: by the Treaty of Fort Wayne and the road leading

498
00:27:20,840 --> 00:27:23,639
Speaker 1: from Vincenz to the Falls of Ohio. So this, of

499
00:27:23,680 --> 00:27:27,959
Speaker 1: course was all part of the larger series of treaties

500
00:27:28,000 --> 00:27:31,680
Speaker 1: that affected this whole part of the US to let

501
00:27:31,720 --> 00:27:34,840
Speaker 1: the government take land that had been previously inhabited by

502
00:27:35,000 --> 00:27:39,280
Speaker 1: native peoples, which also continued long after we're talking about today.

503
00:27:39,280 --> 00:27:41,280
Speaker 1: So this is all sort of going on at the

504
00:27:41,280 --> 00:27:43,600
Speaker 1: same time as all the stuff that we're talking about. Yeah,

505
00:27:44,080 --> 00:27:45,919
Speaker 1: So the nearest town at this point was more than

506
00:27:45,960 --> 00:27:48,320
Speaker 1: thirty miles away, so there was not a lot of

507
00:27:48,320 --> 00:27:52,119
Speaker 1: competition for traveler business when people moved through the area

508
00:27:52,680 --> 00:27:55,280
Speaker 1: and might need a trade or purchase supplies to get

509
00:27:55,280 --> 00:27:58,560
Speaker 1: them ready to keep going wherever they were headed. And additionally,

510
00:27:58,640 --> 00:28:01,320
Speaker 1: the settlement was right there the river, so they started

511
00:28:01,320 --> 00:28:05,359
Speaker 1: shipping their manufactured goods from that point of departure, establishing

512
00:28:05,440 --> 00:28:08,719
Speaker 1: a very wide reaching retail business. All run on a

513
00:28:08,720 --> 00:28:12,960
Speaker 1: communal model where everyone contributed. So while the men generally

514
00:28:13,080 --> 00:28:16,280
Speaker 1: saw to the agricultural efforts, the women and children worked

515
00:28:16,280 --> 00:28:19,800
Speaker 1: in the mills and workshops producing dry goods. So they

516
00:28:19,800 --> 00:28:22,800
Speaker 1: had gotten to Indiana in eighteen fourteen, and that meant

517
00:28:22,800 --> 00:28:25,000
Speaker 1: that the Rappites were really setting up their home and

518
00:28:25,040 --> 00:28:28,480
Speaker 1: their business settlement at the same time that Indiana was

519
00:28:28,520 --> 00:28:32,040
Speaker 1: transitioning to statehood. It became the nineteenth US state at

520
00:28:32,080 --> 00:28:34,960
Speaker 1: the end of eighteen sixteen, so the residents of Harmony

521
00:28:35,000 --> 00:28:37,960
Speaker 1: were basically able to get into the ground floor, so

522
00:28:38,080 --> 00:28:41,400
Speaker 1: to speak, of this new state economy. In addition to

523
00:28:41,400 --> 00:28:44,320
Speaker 1: the fruits and the vegetables that they were growing and selling,

524
00:28:44,600 --> 00:28:48,560
Speaker 1: the town's general store had clothing and shoes. Cold cold

525
00:28:48,640 --> 00:28:53,479
Speaker 1: weather gear, saddles and bridles, and plows and wagons, anything

526
00:28:53,480 --> 00:28:54,600
Speaker 1: else that somebody might need.

527
00:28:55,160 --> 00:28:59,760
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was pioneer target one hundred percent.

528
00:29:00,400 --> 00:29:02,480
Speaker 1: And people went in they only needed shoes, but they

529
00:29:02,520 --> 00:29:06,600
Speaker 1: came out with like so much stuff. They had somebody

530
00:29:06,600 --> 00:29:08,440
Speaker 1: following you around, like do you need a cart? Do

531
00:29:08,480 --> 00:29:10,280
Speaker 1: you need a No, I don't need a cart. If

532
00:29:10,280 --> 00:29:11,880
Speaker 1: you give me a cart, I'm buying everything.

533
00:29:13,520 --> 00:29:14,520
Speaker 2: Yeah.

534
00:29:14,560 --> 00:29:17,720
Speaker 1: But the town also produced beer, wine, and whiskey, which

535
00:29:17,760 --> 00:29:19,880
Speaker 1: could be purchased at the general store, or you could

536
00:29:19,920 --> 00:29:22,280
Speaker 1: enjoy it in the town tavern, which they had also built.

537
00:29:23,080 --> 00:29:26,280
Speaker 1: Harmonists were not anti alcohol, but they were very much

538
00:29:26,400 --> 00:29:30,000
Speaker 1: anti drunkenness. The whiskey that they produced, for example, was

539
00:29:30,040 --> 00:29:33,320
Speaker 1: not something any of them drank. It was for other people.

540
00:29:33,600 --> 00:29:36,360
Speaker 1: They occasionally had wine, but the rest of the alcoholic

541
00:29:36,400 --> 00:29:40,440
Speaker 1: beverages that they produced were strictly commercial. The Harmonists of

542
00:29:40,440 --> 00:29:43,080
Speaker 1: the town could just ask for anything that they needed

543
00:29:43,120 --> 00:29:46,840
Speaker 1: without paying for it, because their participation in the community

544
00:29:47,000 --> 00:29:49,840
Speaker 1: entitled them to it. But really, at least in terms

545
00:29:49,880 --> 00:29:52,200
Speaker 1: of food, there wasn't a whole lot that the Harmonist

546
00:29:52,240 --> 00:29:55,680
Speaker 1: households needed at the general store. As part of the

547
00:29:55,760 --> 00:29:58,560
Speaker 1: establishment of the community. Every home was set up to

548
00:29:58,560 --> 00:30:01,800
Speaker 1: have its own gardens. There poultry and a cow for

549
00:30:01,840 --> 00:30:04,440
Speaker 1: each household, and as we mentioned, there were also public

550
00:30:04,840 --> 00:30:08,960
Speaker 1: access gardens near the dormitories. But outsiders, of course coming

551
00:30:09,000 --> 00:30:12,920
Speaker 1: through you had to pay, and on occasion those outsiders

552
00:30:12,960 --> 00:30:14,680
Speaker 1: found the prices a little bit high, and they were

553
00:30:14,760 --> 00:30:17,520
Speaker 1: kind of resentful that not everybody had to pay for stuff.

554
00:30:18,240 --> 00:30:21,720
Speaker 1: The idea of communal living in this way was completely alien,

555
00:30:21,760 --> 00:30:26,480
Speaker 1: and they sometimes felt like they were being treated poorly. Additionally,

556
00:30:26,880 --> 00:30:30,480
Speaker 1: people certainly noticed that while the harmonists were perfectly happy

557
00:30:30,520 --> 00:30:33,120
Speaker 1: to sell hard liquor, they were not willing to drink it,

558
00:30:33,880 --> 00:30:37,000
Speaker 1: and this led to some interesting discord because there were customers,

559
00:30:37,000 --> 00:30:38,720
Speaker 1: like in the tavern that kind of just felt like

560
00:30:39,280 --> 00:30:42,440
Speaker 1: they were being judged, like I'm going to sit here

561
00:30:42,480 --> 00:30:45,120
Speaker 1: and have a whiskey and there would just be people

562
00:30:45,160 --> 00:30:49,920
Speaker 1: staring at them, just not how I enjoy a vodka,

563
00:30:50,040 --> 00:30:54,480
Speaker 1: so I understand. So all this commerce was largely the

564
00:30:54,480 --> 00:30:58,320
Speaker 1: work of Frederick Reiker Rap, which was George George Rap's

565
00:30:58,360 --> 00:31:02,920
Speaker 1: adopted son. George had understood the need for diversification, but

566
00:31:02,960 --> 00:31:06,040
Speaker 1: it was really Frederick who managed all these various enterprises

567
00:31:06,080 --> 00:31:09,440
Speaker 1: that was making the community really profitable. The profits were

568
00:31:09,520 --> 00:31:13,120
Speaker 1: used to purchase additional land and expanding new Harmonies footprint

569
00:31:13,160 --> 00:31:15,960
Speaker 1: and enabling more crops to be planted for future commerce.

570
00:31:17,080 --> 00:31:20,680
Speaker 1: Frederick was Wrapp's right hand in all these business dealings,

571
00:31:20,680 --> 00:31:22,840
Speaker 1: and it had been Frederick who had stayed behind in

572
00:31:22,880 --> 00:31:25,840
Speaker 1: Harmony of Pennsylvania to wrap up the business affairs there

573
00:31:25,880 --> 00:31:28,840
Speaker 1: after George had moved on and Indiana. He was in

574
00:31:28,920 --> 00:31:32,120
Speaker 1: charge of both the commerce and the political rate relationships

575
00:31:32,120 --> 00:31:36,800
Speaker 1: with outsiders. Yeah, so when county officials had asked rap

576
00:31:36,880 --> 00:31:39,720
Speaker 1: to send a representative from his group to the state

577
00:31:39,800 --> 00:31:43,640
Speaker 1: constitutional Convention in eighteen sixteen, it was naturally Frederick who

578
00:31:43,680 --> 00:31:46,080
Speaker 1: was chosen. This was also in part because Frederick was

579
00:31:46,120 --> 00:31:47,680
Speaker 1: one of the few people who had learned a bit

580
00:31:47,720 --> 00:31:52,120
Speaker 1: of English truly, so he could go. His English was

581
00:31:52,160 --> 00:31:55,200
Speaker 1: allegedly not fantastic, but he could get along, and he

582
00:31:55,360 --> 00:31:58,960
Speaker 1: was assigned interestingly enough for a pacifist group to the

583
00:31:58,960 --> 00:32:01,960
Speaker 1: committee that drafted section of the constitution that related to

584
00:32:02,000 --> 00:32:06,440
Speaker 1: the militia. This actually really worked out, though, because it

585
00:32:06,480 --> 00:32:09,320
Speaker 1: was due to his influence that wording was included at

586
00:32:09,320 --> 00:32:13,240
Speaker 1: that point to allow conscientious objection to the bearing of

587
00:32:13,360 --> 00:32:16,600
Speaker 1: arms with a provision to pay a fee for exclusion

588
00:32:16,640 --> 00:32:19,920
Speaker 1: from the draft, and just as had been the case

589
00:32:19,960 --> 00:32:23,160
Speaker 1: in Pennsylvania, the refusal of the Rappites to participate in

590
00:32:23,200 --> 00:32:27,160
Speaker 1: military service kind of rankled their neighboring communities. Around the

591
00:32:27,160 --> 00:32:30,240
Speaker 1: same time, New Harmony was growing pretty rapidly, and they

592
00:32:30,280 --> 00:32:34,480
Speaker 1: needed more able bodies to run all these manufacturing enterprises,

593
00:32:34,520 --> 00:32:38,400
Speaker 1: and to meet that demand, the requirements of religious devotions

594
00:32:38,440 --> 00:32:42,560
Speaker 1: started relaxing a little bit. Frederick Rapp was appointed as

595
00:32:42,600 --> 00:32:45,960
Speaker 1: one of the commissioners of the State Bank of Indiana,

596
00:32:46,040 --> 00:32:50,640
Speaker 1: and this shift of focus to commerce was particularly upsetting

597
00:32:50,640 --> 00:32:53,600
Speaker 1: for a number of the Harmonists. Their society had been

598
00:32:53,640 --> 00:32:58,040
Speaker 1: founded entirely on their faith, with their commercial interests always

599
00:32:58,160 --> 00:33:01,400
Speaker 1: framed as being necessary to sup that faith, but now

600
00:33:01,440 --> 00:33:03,960
Speaker 1: it seemed less and less like that was the case.

601
00:33:04,440 --> 00:33:07,160
Speaker 1: There was an ebb and flow in New Harmony's population

602
00:33:07,320 --> 00:33:09,960
Speaker 1: in the late eighteen teens that the number of people left.

603
00:33:10,480 --> 00:33:14,680
Speaker 1: New immigrants arrived from Germany and replaced them, but the

604
00:33:14,720 --> 00:33:18,600
Speaker 1: acceptance of new members turned out to be completely unsuccessful.

605
00:33:19,160 --> 00:33:22,200
Speaker 1: Rapp later wrote that the newcomers were quote too wild

606
00:33:22,320 --> 00:33:25,600
Speaker 1: for our congregation, and that he was and this is

607
00:33:25,640 --> 00:33:30,080
Speaker 1: a quote sick and tired of them, and he had

608
00:33:30,120 --> 00:33:33,200
Speaker 1: actually been paying for the passage from Germany for some

609
00:33:33,320 --> 00:33:35,600
Speaker 1: people who had written and said that they wanted to

610
00:33:35,680 --> 00:33:38,520
Speaker 1: join the community, but he put an end to that practice.

611
00:33:38,880 --> 00:33:41,560
Speaker 1: He also stopped the existing members of the community from

612
00:33:41,600 --> 00:33:44,000
Speaker 1: writing home to Germany being like the US is great,

613
00:33:44,040 --> 00:33:48,680
Speaker 1: you guys, because people were saying like, I have found

614
00:33:48,720 --> 00:33:50,440
Speaker 1: a better life here. You can come and you know,

615
00:33:50,480 --> 00:33:52,200
Speaker 1: to family members and friends, you could come and be

616
00:33:52,240 --> 00:33:54,239
Speaker 1: part of this, and he was like, please stop doing that.

617
00:33:54,280 --> 00:33:57,760
Speaker 1: We can't can't do that. He wanted people of faith,

618
00:33:58,000 --> 00:34:01,200
Speaker 1: and most importantly, people so fit that they would obey

619
00:34:01,280 --> 00:34:04,320
Speaker 1: him in whatever he said, and he just could not

620
00:34:04,680 --> 00:34:07,760
Speaker 1: trust any newcomers to live up to his high standard

621
00:34:08,000 --> 00:34:10,680
Speaker 1: of what exactly that meant. So even for the new

622
00:34:10,719 --> 00:34:13,920
Speaker 1: members who were devout enough for George Rap's taste, it

623
00:34:13,960 --> 00:34:17,120
Speaker 1: just wasn't easy. Members who had been with the Harmonists

624
00:34:17,120 --> 00:34:20,880
Speaker 1: since eighteen oh five were pretty judgmental of the newer members,

625
00:34:20,920 --> 00:34:24,440
Speaker 1: and factions started to form of the old and new groups.

626
00:34:25,360 --> 00:34:29,000
Speaker 1: In eighteen eighteen, George Rapp revised those articles that had

627
00:34:29,040 --> 00:34:32,959
Speaker 1: been established thirteen years prior when the Pennsylvania Settlement began

628
00:34:33,160 --> 00:34:36,240
Speaker 1: in an effort to address the destabilization that was taking place,

629
00:34:36,560 --> 00:34:39,240
Speaker 1: and two major changes came from this revision. So First,

630
00:34:39,880 --> 00:34:43,839
Speaker 1: all records of how much any given person had contributed

631
00:34:43,840 --> 00:34:46,960
Speaker 1: to the community upon their entry into it were destroyed.

632
00:34:47,440 --> 00:34:49,560
Speaker 1: The intent was that the old and the new factions

633
00:34:49,560 --> 00:34:51,880
Speaker 1: would stop bickering about who was more valuable to the

634
00:34:51,880 --> 00:34:56,200
Speaker 1: community and who had given more and deserved more. Second,

635
00:34:56,480 --> 00:34:59,560
Speaker 1: that provision for those choosing to leave to get a

636
00:34:59,600 --> 00:35:04,520
Speaker 1: cash upon their exit was stricken from the charter because

637
00:35:04,560 --> 00:35:06,960
Speaker 1: as people were wanting to leave, he was recognizing that

638
00:35:07,000 --> 00:35:09,840
Speaker 1: he couldn't just keep giving bushels of money away. So

639
00:35:09,920 --> 00:35:12,960
Speaker 1: at the same time as these internal issues were plaguing

640
00:35:13,040 --> 00:35:16,600
Speaker 1: New Harmony, there was also mountain friction with their neighbors.

641
00:35:17,080 --> 00:35:19,279
Speaker 1: At this point, immigrants who'd been in the US for

642
00:35:19,320 --> 00:35:22,360
Speaker 1: a while and the first generation of European descendants to

643
00:35:22,400 --> 00:35:26,319
Speaker 1: be born on US soil started to view immigrants new

644
00:35:26,480 --> 00:35:32,400
Speaker 1: immigrants as potentially destructive to what they had built. Little

645
00:35:33,160 --> 00:35:38,120
Speaker 1: ironic Yeah, and Rap's community had a number of things

646
00:35:38,160 --> 00:35:42,640
Speaker 1: working against it as this settlement grew. So for one thing,

647
00:35:43,280 --> 00:35:46,319
Speaker 1: or as this sentiment grew rather, I'm sorry for one thing,

648
00:35:46,360 --> 00:35:49,000
Speaker 1: it was self isolating, so most of the members still

649
00:35:49,040 --> 00:35:53,640
Speaker 1: only spoke German. They refused to bear arms, and that

650
00:35:53,680 --> 00:35:56,600
Speaker 1: group was wealthy enough to pay the penalty required to

651
00:35:56,680 --> 00:35:59,600
Speaker 1: exempt them from military service, whereas most people could not

652
00:35:59,640 --> 00:36:02,960
Speaker 1: have afford it. They also commanded just a huge chunk

653
00:36:03,000 --> 00:36:06,319
Speaker 1: of the area's financial capital, and they seemed impervious to

654
00:36:06,400 --> 00:36:09,440
Speaker 1: the various shifts in the market that negatively impacted the

655
00:36:09,480 --> 00:36:13,359
Speaker 1: communities around them. And they weren't having children, so they

656
00:36:13,400 --> 00:36:17,080
Speaker 1: weren't helping to build the US population, just as had

657
00:36:17,080 --> 00:36:19,920
Speaker 1: been the case back in Pennsylvania. Rap and the Harmonists

658
00:36:19,960 --> 00:36:23,560
Speaker 1: were facing increasing resentment from the locals and dealing with

659
00:36:23,600 --> 00:36:26,920
Speaker 1: their own fractures within the commune, so they decided to leave.

660
00:36:27,480 --> 00:36:29,640
Speaker 1: They left all their hard work in New Harmony, Indiana,

661
00:36:29,800 --> 00:36:32,440
Speaker 1: to start all over again. Raps still believed that the

662
00:36:32,480 --> 00:36:36,440
Speaker 1: second coming was eminence. He wanted to regroup, reset the

663
00:36:36,440 --> 00:36:39,680
Speaker 1: community with the focus of preparing for that, And in

664
00:36:39,719 --> 00:36:42,360
Speaker 1: the decade that they spent here in Indiana, Rap and

665
00:36:42,440 --> 00:36:46,040
Speaker 1: his people had really built something considerable. So they had

666
00:36:46,080 --> 00:36:50,080
Speaker 1: not only raised such varied crops as sugarcane, wheat, hemp, cotton,

667
00:36:50,160 --> 00:36:53,920
Speaker 1: and flax, among others, they had also built that general store,

668
00:36:53,960 --> 00:36:58,760
Speaker 1: and in various specialty shops, textile mills, tanneries, and distilleries.

669
00:36:59,160 --> 00:37:03,040
Speaker 1: They were producing three thousand gallons of whiskey for sale

670
00:37:03,080 --> 00:37:08,320
Speaker 1: each year and harvesting thousands of bushels of things like potatoes, rye,

671
00:37:08,400 --> 00:37:11,720
Speaker 1: and oats. And they had started importing sheep from Spain

672
00:37:11,840 --> 00:37:14,040
Speaker 1: to make fine woolens, and they were able to get

673
00:37:14,040 --> 00:37:17,719
Speaker 1: into a textile market that previously had only included wool

674
00:37:17,800 --> 00:37:21,360
Speaker 1: fabric that was imported from Europe. But then in eighteen

675
00:37:21,400 --> 00:37:23,560
Speaker 1: twenty four, New Harmony was sold to a man named

676
00:37:23,600 --> 00:37:26,279
Speaker 1: Robert Owen for another selling of an entire town in

677
00:37:26,320 --> 00:37:31,440
Speaker 1: this story, and the Harmonists left Indiana. Okay, So before

678
00:37:31,480 --> 00:37:34,320
Speaker 1: we get into the next phase of New Harmony's history,

679
00:37:34,719 --> 00:37:36,839
Speaker 1: we are going to take another little break and hear

680
00:37:36,880 --> 00:37:38,680
Speaker 1: from one of the sponsors that keep stuff you missed

681
00:37:38,680 --> 00:37:50,160
Speaker 1: in history class going. Robert Owen was born on May

682
00:37:50,200 --> 00:37:54,480
Speaker 1: fourteenth of seventeen seventy one in Newtown, Montgomery, share Wales.

683
00:37:54,560 --> 00:37:57,000
Speaker 1: I have probably said that incorrect for the Welsh people.

684
00:37:58,160 --> 00:38:01,279
Speaker 1: His parents, Robert Owen and Anne Williams, had six other

685
00:38:01,400 --> 00:38:04,760
Speaker 1: children in addition to Robert, and as a child, Owen

686
00:38:04,800 --> 00:38:07,200
Speaker 1: moved to London and he became a clothe year's apprentice

687
00:38:07,239 --> 00:38:09,719
Speaker 1: at the age of ten, and in that job he

688
00:38:09,760 --> 00:38:13,160
Speaker 1: had access to his employer's vast library of books, which

689
00:38:13,200 --> 00:38:16,920
Speaker 1: he loved. He also really excelled in the textile industry,

690
00:38:17,000 --> 00:38:20,240
Speaker 1: and before age twenty he was already running a large

691
00:38:20,280 --> 00:38:24,319
Speaker 1: Manchester cotton mill that went on to great success under

692
00:38:24,360 --> 00:38:27,480
Speaker 1: his leadership. And through his success he started making little

693
00:38:27,520 --> 00:38:30,760
Speaker 1: efforts into the idea of communal living, and his first

694
00:38:30,800 --> 00:38:34,000
Speaker 1: such work started when he convinced his bosses to purchase

695
00:38:34,080 --> 00:38:38,280
Speaker 1: some mills in the Scottish village of New Lanark, which

696
00:38:38,480 --> 00:38:42,279
Speaker 1: was a really impoverished community, and Robert Owen wanted to

697
00:38:42,320 --> 00:38:45,360
Speaker 1: improve the quality of life for everyone in New Lanark,

698
00:38:45,480 --> 00:38:48,439
Speaker 1: so he worked on initiatives to make the housing there

699
00:38:48,560 --> 00:38:51,120
Speaker 1: safer and cleaner, and to educate the children in the

700
00:38:51,160 --> 00:38:54,200
Speaker 1: area as well as the adults, and he was mindful

701
00:38:54,280 --> 00:38:57,040
Speaker 1: of the welfare of the workers in the mills he managed.

702
00:38:57,840 --> 00:39:00,160
Speaker 1: When the mills closed for several months during the War

703
00:39:00,200 --> 00:39:02,680
Speaker 1: of eighteen twelve, he actually made sure that the workers

704
00:39:02,719 --> 00:39:05,560
Speaker 1: continued to get paid during that time. Naturally, things like

705
00:39:05,600 --> 00:39:09,200
Speaker 1: this really endeared him to the people he employed, but

706
00:39:09,360 --> 00:39:13,920
Speaker 1: his business partners not so much. Disagreements over this led

707
00:39:14,000 --> 00:39:17,000
Speaker 1: Robert Owen to breaking from his established job and starting

708
00:39:17,000 --> 00:39:20,600
Speaker 1: his own company in eighteen thirteen. The stockholders and his

709
00:39:20,719 --> 00:39:24,080
Speaker 1: new adventure were pretty like minded. They were content to

710
00:39:24,120 --> 00:39:26,960
Speaker 1: take a smaller share of the profits so that the

711
00:39:27,000 --> 00:39:31,360
Speaker 1: money that was made could be put toward benevolent projects,

712
00:39:31,400 --> 00:39:35,759
Speaker 1: and soon they bought out his old partners. Yeah, and

713
00:39:35,800 --> 00:39:38,600
Speaker 1: one of the drivers in Owens's work was actually his

714
00:39:38,680 --> 00:39:42,520
Speaker 1: attitude toward religion. He thought that all established religions were

715
00:39:42,560 --> 00:39:46,680
Speaker 1: really problematic, and he thought that people's circumstances had greater

716
00:39:46,760 --> 00:39:50,160
Speaker 1: influence over their behavior and their lives than any church

717
00:39:50,239 --> 00:39:54,040
Speaker 1: ever could, and so he thought that if everyone's circumstances

718
00:39:54,080 --> 00:39:57,000
Speaker 1: were improved, the world would just become a better place.

719
00:39:57,480 --> 00:39:59,960
Speaker 1: And he was working to make New Lanark an example

720
00:40:00,160 --> 00:40:04,040
Speaker 1: of how that ideology worked. And as a consequence, the village,

721
00:40:04,080 --> 00:40:07,440
Speaker 1: which is pretty successful in his efforts, was visited and

722
00:40:07,480 --> 00:40:11,600
Speaker 1: studied by everyone from royals to philosophers. He kept working

723
00:40:11,600 --> 00:40:14,920
Speaker 1: on bettering the lives of people in the village, particularly

724
00:40:14,960 --> 00:40:18,320
Speaker 1: the children, and he wanted to extend that beyond the town.

725
00:40:18,560 --> 00:40:22,040
Speaker 1: He lobbied among manufacturers to reduce the number of hours

726
00:40:22,040 --> 00:40:26,880
Speaker 1: that children worked that was initially voted down. He also

727
00:40:27,040 --> 00:40:30,880
Speaker 1: opened Great Britain's first kindergarten in New Lanark in eighteen sixteen,

728
00:40:30,960 --> 00:40:34,520
Speaker 1: called the Institution for the Formation of Character. And all

729
00:40:34,560 --> 00:40:37,480
Speaker 1: of this was really like a slow burned build up

730
00:40:37,640 --> 00:40:41,040
Speaker 1: to lead o into the idea of communal living. And

731
00:40:41,080 --> 00:40:45,000
Speaker 1: he thought particularly that if unemployed workers displaced by machinery

732
00:40:45,080 --> 00:40:49,040
Speaker 1: in the Industrial Revolution just had safety and security and

733
00:40:49,080 --> 00:40:52,240
Speaker 1: a reasonable standard of living, a lot of the world's

734
00:40:52,239 --> 00:40:54,640
Speaker 1: ills would be cured. Like he saw it as a

735
00:40:54,640 --> 00:40:57,319
Speaker 1: pretty obvious chain of events, like people are without work,

736
00:40:57,360 --> 00:40:59,839
Speaker 1: they don't have money, they turned to crime, or they

737
00:40:59,880 --> 00:41:01,880
Speaker 1: just fall on hard times and they suffer, and we

738
00:41:01,920 --> 00:41:06,120
Speaker 1: could prevent all of that. He envisioned these villages that

739
00:41:06,160 --> 00:41:10,400
Speaker 1: were designed for this idea, where family oriented dormitories existed,

740
00:41:10,440 --> 00:41:13,880
Speaker 1: that had commonery areas where people could cook and socialize,

741
00:41:14,160 --> 00:41:16,719
Speaker 1: and children would stay with their parents the first three years,

742
00:41:16,760 --> 00:41:19,280
Speaker 1: but then be raised by the collective and then everyone

743
00:41:19,320 --> 00:41:21,719
Speaker 1: would work as they were able to keep the whole

744
00:41:21,760 --> 00:41:26,280
Speaker 1: thing going, including agricultural work to provide food. So Owen

745
00:41:26,360 --> 00:41:30,000
Speaker 1: had actually made contact with New Harmony four years before

746
00:41:30,040 --> 00:41:32,560
Speaker 1: he took possession of it. He had written to George

747
00:41:32,640 --> 00:41:35,080
Speaker 1: rap with this series of questions about how the rapp

748
00:41:35,080 --> 00:41:37,400
Speaker 1: Bite Utopia was functioning. He had done that in eighteen

749
00:41:37,440 --> 00:41:41,759
Speaker 1: twenty as his ideas of these communities to prevent poperism

750
00:41:41,800 --> 00:41:45,560
Speaker 1: were forming in his head. So when George Raps Harmonists

751
00:41:45,600 --> 00:41:48,120
Speaker 1: were ready to sell, Owen was ready to buy. And

752
00:41:48,160 --> 00:41:51,400
Speaker 1: he already knew that the Harmonist village had been profitable

753
00:41:51,880 --> 00:41:54,719
Speaker 1: after writing a number of essays about how communal society

754
00:41:54,760 --> 00:41:56,960
Speaker 1: could succeed, he was ready to take possession of this

755
00:41:57,000 --> 00:42:00,680
Speaker 1: whole town and prove it. And additionally, he his own

756
00:42:00,760 --> 00:42:04,000
Speaker 1: problems that were making it pretty appealing to leave home and.

757
00:42:04,040 --> 00:42:05,360
Speaker 2: Strike out in a new place.

758
00:42:06,800 --> 00:42:11,160
Speaker 1: His outspoken anti religion stance had really strained relationships with

759
00:42:11,200 --> 00:42:13,759
Speaker 1: his business partners as well as his wife, who was

760
00:42:14,000 --> 00:42:19,719
Speaker 1: very religiously devout. I can't imagine that marriage. And his

761
00:42:19,800 --> 00:42:22,880
Speaker 1: work in New Lanard was actually hitting some problems as well.

762
00:42:23,280 --> 00:42:25,960
Speaker 1: There had been a typhoid outbreak, which was really kind

763
00:42:25,960 --> 00:42:28,560
Speaker 1: of scandalous for a town that was touted as having

764
00:42:28,600 --> 00:42:32,440
Speaker 1: impeccable cleanliness, and there was a dispute over pay rates

765
00:42:32,440 --> 00:42:35,600
Speaker 1: that was brewing. And part of the problem was that

766
00:42:35,640 --> 00:42:38,080
Speaker 1: as Owen had gotten more and more obsessed with creating

767
00:42:38,120 --> 00:42:40,800
Speaker 1: a new utopia. He had grown more and more distant

768
00:42:40,800 --> 00:42:43,799
Speaker 1: from that company town that was his first experiment in

769
00:42:43,960 --> 00:42:47,640
Speaker 1: socialized society. Owen paid one hundred and thirty five thousand

770
00:42:47,719 --> 00:42:50,360
Speaker 1: dollars for New Harmony, and that purchase was final in

771
00:42:50,400 --> 00:42:53,640
Speaker 1: early January of eighteen twenty five. Robert Owen was really

772
00:42:53,680 --> 00:42:56,439
Speaker 1: eager to get to work. Five of his children, which

773
00:42:56,480 --> 00:42:59,319
Speaker 1: included four sons and a daughter, traveled to Indiana to

774
00:42:59,360 --> 00:43:03,160
Speaker 1: help their fought and as spring arrived, Owen offered a

775
00:43:03,280 --> 00:43:06,160
Speaker 1: life in the community to anyone who cared to join

776
00:43:06,360 --> 00:43:10,840
Speaker 1: and then embrace its ideals of equality and communal living.

777
00:43:11,040 --> 00:43:16,359
Speaker 2: Yep, open invitation. That sounds smart. What could go wrong?

778
00:43:16,920 --> 00:43:20,239
Speaker 1: Also, we're going to return to the ideas of equality

779
00:43:20,280 --> 00:43:20,800
Speaker 1: in a minute.

780
00:43:20,840 --> 00:43:22,520
Speaker 2: Yeah, not so much so.

781
00:43:22,880 --> 00:43:25,400
Speaker 1: His new town had come with one hundred and eighty buildings,

782
00:43:25,440 --> 00:43:27,600
Speaker 1: but they were pretty quickly kind of packed to the

783
00:43:27,600 --> 00:43:30,359
Speaker 1: guilds because a lot of people wanted in on this opportunity.

784
00:43:30,960 --> 00:43:33,839
Speaker 1: But almost from the beginning things went wrong. For one,

785
00:43:34,040 --> 00:43:37,600
Speaker 1: Owen continually bad mouthed established religion, which made a lot

786
00:43:37,640 --> 00:43:41,200
Speaker 1: of the newcomers really uneasy. He was a dedicated follower

787
00:43:41,200 --> 00:43:44,200
Speaker 1: of Enlightenment thinking, and he wanted to eschew tradition in

788
00:43:44,239 --> 00:43:47,400
Speaker 1: favor of forging all new paths, which was another unpopular

789
00:43:47,440 --> 00:43:50,840
Speaker 1: position that made people a little nervous. And he tended

790
00:43:50,880 --> 00:43:54,160
Speaker 1: to appeal to the upper class for financing and support,

791
00:43:54,760 --> 00:43:57,760
Speaker 1: and he misjudged the willingness of the US upper classes

792
00:43:57,800 --> 00:44:01,400
Speaker 1: to participate in such an experiment tarticularly an experiment like

793
00:44:01,440 --> 00:44:04,240
Speaker 1: this that had no ties whatsoever to religion.

794
00:44:04,160 --> 00:44:05,680
Speaker 2: And spoke openly against it.

795
00:44:05,760 --> 00:44:08,680
Speaker 1: In fact, he did find some help in the form

796
00:44:08,680 --> 00:44:12,000
Speaker 1: of William McClure, who was a Scottish born merchant who

797
00:44:12,080 --> 00:44:15,600
Speaker 1: also believed in social reform and ultimately did invest heavily

798
00:44:15,640 --> 00:44:19,000
Speaker 1: in New Harmony. McClure offered his own funds to the

799
00:44:19,040 --> 00:44:22,160
Speaker 1: development of New Harmonies schools and engaged some of the

800
00:44:22,160 --> 00:44:24,960
Speaker 1: most respected educators of the day to teach there. I mean,

801
00:44:25,000 --> 00:44:28,960
Speaker 1: the schools had a really amazing reputation. McClure also paid

802
00:44:29,040 --> 00:44:33,200
Speaker 1: for the school's labs to have scientific equipment and other necessities. Yeah,

803
00:44:33,239 --> 00:44:34,839
Speaker 1: I feel like there could be a whole side show

804
00:44:34,960 --> 00:44:37,640
Speaker 1: just about the people that he brought. We don't talk

805
00:44:37,640 --> 00:44:39,839
Speaker 1: about it nearly enough in this one because it's about

806
00:44:39,880 --> 00:44:42,879
Speaker 1: the whole whole story, but there were some great people

807
00:44:42,960 --> 00:44:47,319
Speaker 1: doing cool things. Owen had created a foundation document called

808
00:44:47,440 --> 00:44:50,319
Speaker 1: Rules for a Good Community in nineteen twenty five that

809
00:44:50,400 --> 00:44:56,120
Speaker 1: outlined what he thought was necessary to create inequality based society. Incidentally,

810
00:44:56,680 --> 00:45:00,680
Speaker 1: our lovely hosts have this digitized online as well as

811
00:45:00,680 --> 00:45:05,040
Speaker 1: many many other fabulous documents that are really really were

812
00:45:05,080 --> 00:45:06,840
Speaker 1: really helpful to me and doing research for this, but

813
00:45:06,920 --> 00:45:10,560
Speaker 1: also just are fascinating to look through. So Owen's is Owen's.

814
00:45:10,560 --> 00:45:12,279
Speaker 1: I keep wanting to put an s on his name.

815
00:45:12,320 --> 00:45:15,680
Speaker 1: He's just Owen. Owen's Rules were pretty lengthy, but they

816
00:45:15,680 --> 00:45:18,160
Speaker 1: set up some very important ideas, including the fact that

817
00:45:18,200 --> 00:45:21,239
Speaker 1: the financial accounts of the community should be maintained by

818
00:45:21,280 --> 00:45:24,920
Speaker 1: a chosen treasurer who reported to a committee on all transactions,

819
00:45:25,239 --> 00:45:27,920
Speaker 1: and that all of those financial records needed to be

820
00:45:27,960 --> 00:45:30,359
Speaker 1: open for anyone in the community to go and.

821
00:45:30,239 --> 00:45:31,279
Speaker 2: Review if they wanted to.

822
00:45:31,719 --> 00:45:35,200
Speaker 1: Robert Owen's Rules also set up different departments to manage

823
00:45:35,200 --> 00:45:38,320
Speaker 1: things like manufacture, policing, health, and education.

824
00:45:38,560 --> 00:45:40,120
Speaker 2: Things like that these.

825
00:45:39,960 --> 00:45:44,399
Speaker 1: Divisions would be run by subcommittees skillful practical men from

826
00:45:44,400 --> 00:45:46,919
Speaker 1: the community with expertise in any of these areas could

827
00:45:46,960 --> 00:45:51,600
Speaker 1: be engaged by the appropriate sub committee for assistance. But really,

828
00:45:51,640 --> 00:45:55,440
Speaker 1: despite all these plans, Owen's utopia was a lot harder

829
00:45:55,640 --> 00:45:58,120
Speaker 1: he found to execute in reality than it had been

830
00:45:58,160 --> 00:46:00,960
Speaker 1: on paper. For one, even though it was going to

831
00:46:01,000 --> 00:46:03,399
Speaker 1: be a society of equals, there were some pretty clear

832
00:46:03,520 --> 00:46:07,200
Speaker 1: class distinctions. Wealthy people had moved there due to the

833
00:46:07,280 --> 00:46:11,120
Speaker 1: draw of this life among the intelligentsia, and working people

834
00:46:11,200 --> 00:46:13,360
Speaker 1: had moved there for a chance to have a better life,

835
00:46:13,400 --> 00:46:15,640
Speaker 1: and everybody thought it was going to be equal, but

836
00:46:15,680 --> 00:46:18,680
Speaker 1: the reality was that those two groups rarely mixed. They

837
00:46:18,800 --> 00:46:22,360
Speaker 1: kind of chose instead to self segregate along wealth lines.

838
00:46:22,640 --> 00:46:26,839
Speaker 1: There wasn't a relinquishing of personal wealth in Owen's group

839
00:46:26,920 --> 00:46:29,600
Speaker 1: like there had been in Wraps, so this class structure

840
00:46:29,719 --> 00:46:33,920
Speaker 1: had just followed everyone into new harmony. The working class

841
00:46:34,040 --> 00:46:37,560
Speaker 1: was resentful of wealthier inhabitants and ability to contribute to

842
00:46:37,600 --> 00:46:40,120
Speaker 1: the labor that was needed to sustain such a place.

843
00:46:40,840 --> 00:46:44,839
Speaker 1: No structure was ever fully implemented. The community couldn't really

844
00:46:44,880 --> 00:46:48,840
Speaker 1: become self sufficient, so the group was floundering, while Owen

845
00:46:48,920 --> 00:46:51,200
Speaker 1: was continuing to put his own money into trying to

846
00:46:51,239 --> 00:46:52,280
Speaker 1: keep it afloat.

847
00:46:52,640 --> 00:46:53,960
Speaker 2: Even on uneven footing.

848
00:46:54,000 --> 00:46:55,880
Speaker 1: I feel like we should mention that there were some

849
00:46:56,000 --> 00:47:00,760
Speaker 1: efforts really to make new harmony into a community. Owen's children,

850
00:47:00,800 --> 00:47:03,120
Speaker 1: in particular, did a lot of things. His son William

851
00:47:03,480 --> 00:47:06,720
Speaker 1: started a Thespian Society so that they could have arts

852
00:47:07,040 --> 00:47:10,480
Speaker 1: and people could go see plays whenever they wished. The

853
00:47:10,520 --> 00:47:13,640
Speaker 1: school system is really what flourished though children had both

854
00:47:13,680 --> 00:47:17,960
Speaker 1: academic curriculum and training in trades. But ultimately, when it

855
00:47:18,000 --> 00:47:20,360
Speaker 1: came down to it and things really were obviously not

856
00:47:20,400 --> 00:47:23,920
Speaker 1: going to work out, Owen blamed McClure and the educational

857
00:47:23,960 --> 00:47:28,160
Speaker 1: setup for tanking the community. Owen gave one last address

858
00:47:28,200 --> 00:47:30,760
Speaker 1: to the community on May sixth of eighteen twenty seven,

859
00:47:30,800 --> 00:47:33,680
Speaker 1: and in it he said that McClure system only reinforced

860
00:47:33,680 --> 00:47:36,840
Speaker 1: class distinctions instead of erasing him. There had been some

861
00:47:36,960 --> 00:47:39,640
Speaker 1: debate over whether he was favoring children that were from

862
00:47:39,680 --> 00:47:44,840
Speaker 1: wealthier families with better opportunities. Owen also thought there was

863
00:47:44,840 --> 00:47:48,960
Speaker 1: too much creativity in the curriculum and not enough morality education,

864
00:47:49,480 --> 00:47:52,960
Speaker 1: and he basically told everyone his school ideas had been

865
00:47:53,000 --> 00:47:55,759
Speaker 1: superior to McClure's and if they had just done it

866
00:47:55,800 --> 00:48:00,279
Speaker 1: had his way, they could have sustained the town. Long

867
00:48:00,320 --> 00:48:04,880
Speaker 1: story Bless his heart. Long story short, this did not

868
00:48:05,080 --> 00:48:08,000
Speaker 1: go all that well. By the time Robert Owen decided

869
00:48:08,000 --> 00:48:10,960
Speaker 1: to end his involvement in this utopian dream, he had

870
00:48:11,000 --> 00:48:14,080
Speaker 1: lost eighty percent of his personal fortune. He went on

871
00:48:14,200 --> 00:48:17,600
Speaker 1: to participate, but in a much less central way and

872
00:48:17,760 --> 00:48:20,960
Speaker 1: other utopian experiments, but he eventually focused a lot more

873
00:48:20,960 --> 00:48:24,040
Speaker 1: on activism and the establishment of trade unions. Yeah, he

874
00:48:24,080 --> 00:48:26,800
Speaker 1: really became like a labor activist, which kind of seemed

875
00:48:26,800 --> 00:48:28,600
Speaker 1: like it should have been his thing from the get go,

876
00:48:28,719 --> 00:48:33,880
Speaker 1: but he learned a lot in the process. If you

877
00:48:33,960 --> 00:48:36,799
Speaker 1: are wondering what happened to the Rappites and their leader

878
00:48:36,840 --> 00:48:40,120
Speaker 1: after they left Indiana, they moved as planned and started

879
00:48:40,120 --> 00:48:43,279
Speaker 1: a new settlement, returning to Pennsylvania to do it. That

880
00:48:43,360 --> 00:48:46,319
Speaker 1: new home was called Economy, and it was where George

881
00:48:46,400 --> 00:48:48,560
Speaker 1: Rapp lived out the rest of his life. And just

882
00:48:48,640 --> 00:48:51,200
Speaker 1: as they had grown New Harmony into a massive and

883
00:48:51,280 --> 00:48:56,120
Speaker 1: profitable enterprise, Economy had investments in railroads and the oil industry,

884
00:48:56,680 --> 00:49:00,640
Speaker 1: and their export business reached dozens of states and ten countries.

885
00:49:00,719 --> 00:49:02,879
Speaker 1: So they just kept on going with that money thing.

886
00:49:03,000 --> 00:49:06,440
Speaker 1: This fascinates me because so often the story is and

887
00:49:06,480 --> 00:49:08,520
Speaker 1: then they ran out of money and everyone got sick

888
00:49:08,560 --> 00:49:14,520
Speaker 1: and moved away. Even though they were very financially successful,

889
00:49:14,800 --> 00:49:18,200
Speaker 1: it was not entirely smooth. Rap and his adopted son, Frederick,

890
00:49:18,239 --> 00:49:21,160
Speaker 1: who he had relied on so heavily since the beginning

891
00:49:21,200 --> 00:49:23,279
Speaker 1: of the Harmonist time in the United States, started to

892
00:49:23,320 --> 00:49:27,040
Speaker 1: have disagreements about planning for the financial future of the community.

893
00:49:27,640 --> 00:49:30,000
Speaker 1: That caused a lot of fracturing within the group and

894
00:49:30,080 --> 00:49:35,040
Speaker 1: a lot of tension. Yeah, when they started to think

895
00:49:35,080 --> 00:49:38,600
Speaker 1: about like there was also this problem where people were realizing, like.

896
00:49:41,200 --> 00:49:43,320
Speaker 2: What about Christmas here yet y'all.

897
00:49:45,239 --> 00:49:49,400
Speaker 1: We're not having kids and we're getting older and there's

898
00:49:49,440 --> 00:49:51,799
Speaker 1: some problems. Like they started to realize this was not

899
00:49:51,960 --> 00:49:55,400
Speaker 1: working out. Rap died in eighteen forty seven at the

900
00:49:55,400 --> 00:49:58,680
Speaker 1: age of eighty nine. And remember that collection fun that

901
00:49:58,760 --> 00:50:02,160
Speaker 1: he started the early years of his community because they

902
00:50:02,200 --> 00:50:04,320
Speaker 1: wanted to have funds so they could deal with travel

903
00:50:04,360 --> 00:50:09,000
Speaker 1: needs to Jerusalem and any chaos that ensued. When he died,

904
00:50:09,200 --> 00:50:12,120
Speaker 1: he had amassed half a million dollars that he kept

905
00:50:12,120 --> 00:50:17,600
Speaker 1: an a vault under his bedroom. He had withdrawn all

906
00:50:17,640 --> 00:50:20,640
Speaker 1: of the Harmonists money from banks because he feared a

907
00:50:20,640 --> 00:50:23,680
Speaker 1: banking collapse. So he was just literally sitting on top

908
00:50:23,719 --> 00:50:27,319
Speaker 1: of a pile of money. I feel like that that

909
00:50:27,480 --> 00:50:31,359
Speaker 1: wasn't an unjustified fear. But at the same time, that's

910
00:50:31,400 --> 00:50:33,120
Speaker 1: a lot of money to have in a vault.

911
00:50:32,960 --> 00:50:35,520
Speaker 2: Under your bedroom. Yeah, I would dig it.

912
00:50:35,880 --> 00:50:41,839
Speaker 1: Yeah. The Rappike community continued, but without its charismatic leader,

913
00:50:41,880 --> 00:50:45,279
Speaker 1: it couldn't really sustain things long term. Soon members of

914
00:50:45,280 --> 00:50:47,520
Speaker 1: the group were questioning some of those things they had

915
00:50:47,520 --> 00:50:52,759
Speaker 1: agreed to, in particular that celibacy situation. That also meant

916
00:50:52,760 --> 00:50:56,000
Speaker 1: that they hadn't expanded their community by starting families, and

917
00:50:56,280 --> 00:50:59,879
Speaker 1: without Wrap driving that whole ideology, they also weren't bringing

918
00:51:00,080 --> 00:51:03,080
Speaker 1: in new members, so just the math was not in

919
00:51:03,120 --> 00:51:06,399
Speaker 1: their favor long term. In the twenty years after rap died,

920
00:51:06,520 --> 00:51:09,160
Speaker 1: the group shrank down to about two hundred and fifty members,

921
00:51:09,280 --> 00:51:12,080
Speaker 1: and from there it continued to diminish right up until

922
00:51:12,120 --> 00:51:15,080
Speaker 1: the dawn of the twentieth century. In nineteen oh three,

923
00:51:15,120 --> 00:51:17,799
Speaker 1: the town of Economy was sold by a representative of

924
00:51:17,840 --> 00:51:22,200
Speaker 1: the remaining Rapites for several million dollars. In nineteen oh five,

925
00:51:22,280 --> 00:51:24,840
Speaker 1: the US Supreme Court issued judgments on the last of

926
00:51:24,840 --> 00:51:28,759
Speaker 1: the disputed Rapite assets at Economy, and within a year

927
00:51:28,840 --> 00:51:32,520
Speaker 1: the Harmonist movement was completely a matter of history. As

928
00:51:32,520 --> 00:51:35,400
Speaker 1: for the people who had landed in the failed utopia

929
00:51:35,440 --> 00:51:38,560
Speaker 1: of Robert Owen, one particular aspect of their efforts really

930
00:51:38,640 --> 00:51:41,960
Speaker 1: did take hold and survived. The educators that McClure had

931
00:51:41,960 --> 00:51:45,560
Speaker 1: brought in called the Boatloaders because the ship most of

932
00:51:45,600 --> 00:51:47,680
Speaker 1: them traveled on to the United States had been nicknamed

933
00:51:47,680 --> 00:51:53,040
Speaker 1: the Boatload of Knowledge, which I love. They I think

934
00:51:53,080 --> 00:51:55,560
Speaker 1: that's a good T shirt. We should do that load

935
00:51:55,600 --> 00:51:57,280
Speaker 1: of Knowledge shirt is a good one.

936
00:51:57,920 --> 00:51:58,840
Speaker 2: They stayed.

937
00:51:59,200 --> 00:52:04,040
Speaker 1: They created enclave of science and education that persisted for

938
00:52:04,400 --> 00:52:05,879
Speaker 1: long after Owen was gone.

939
00:52:06,040 --> 00:52:06,239
Speaker 2: Yeah.

940
00:52:06,320 --> 00:52:09,359
Speaker 1: McClure, as you guys probably know because you're you live

941
00:52:09,400 --> 00:52:12,880
Speaker 1: near here, was really known for his knowledge of geology,

942
00:52:12,920 --> 00:52:17,280
Speaker 1: and he really started some interesting stuff in New Harmony

943
00:52:17,360 --> 00:52:21,319
Speaker 1: in terms of like teaching geology and establishing labs there,

944
00:52:21,360 --> 00:52:26,520
Speaker 1: and a pretty long tale for him of his legacy.

945
00:52:26,520 --> 00:52:30,200
Speaker 1: As a consequence, in nineteen sixty five, New Harmony became

946
00:52:30,239 --> 00:52:33,400
Speaker 1: a National Historic District. Many sections of the town have

947
00:52:33,480 --> 00:52:36,560
Speaker 1: been restored to their Rappite era versions, and the village's

948
00:52:36,600 --> 00:52:40,040
Speaker 1: famous hedge labyrinth was restored in nineteen forty, much to

949
00:52:40,120 --> 00:52:43,480
Speaker 1: the to the delight and sometimes confusion of tourists who

950
00:52:43,560 --> 00:52:46,600
Speaker 1: choose to enter, as so as people who go visit.

951
00:52:46,680 --> 00:52:48,880
Speaker 1: That's I have not gotten to go to New Harmony.

952
00:52:48,920 --> 00:52:51,200
Speaker 1: That's the one thing I want to see. I will

953
00:52:51,200 --> 00:52:53,319
Speaker 1: get lost in that labyrinth and maybe never come out.

954
00:52:54,280 --> 00:53:03,440
Speaker 1: But that is our New Harmony tale for the day.

955
00:53:05,480 --> 00:53:08,480
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for joining us on this Saturday. If

956
00:53:08,480 --> 00:53:10,640
Speaker 1: you'd like to send us a note, our email addresses

957
00:53:10,800 --> 00:53:15,360
Speaker 1: History Podcast at iHeartRadio dot com, and you can subscribe

958
00:53:15,440 --> 00:53:18,480
Speaker 1: to the show on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or

959
00:53:18,560 --> 00:53:20,600
Speaker 1: wherever you listen to your favorite shows.