Owen, Robert Dale

Robert Dale (1800-1877), a Scottish-American reformer. He was the son of Robert Owen, and was born at Glasgow. In 1825 he came to America to superintend affairs at New Harmony. Later, he attempted to establish a community near Memphis for free negroes. For a time he was the editor and publisher of a socialist paper in New York, called the Free Enquirer. In 1835 he was elected to the legislature of Indiana, and eight years later he was sent to Congress as a Democrat. He took a prominent part in the founding of the Smithsonian Institution and in the settlement of the Oregon boundary dispute. He was minister to Naples in 1855. He became a prominent Abolitionist. His later days were spent in advocacy of Spiritualism, the subject of several works, including Footprints on the Boundary of Another World, etc. An Autobiography gives an interesting account of his early life. See Communism