Owen
Owen names 3 different subjects across the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf. Each is set out below.
Owen ROBERT, an English social Montgomeryshire
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
ROBERT, an English social Montgomeryshire, Wales, March 14, Coverance reformer and author; born in Newton, 1771. He early turned his attention to social questions, publishing in 1813 "New Views of Society; or, Essays upon pers. the Formation of the Human Character, and Book of the New Moral World." He attempted to found communist societies in England, also in New Harmony, Ind., and in later Mexico. In his later years he became a believer in Spiritualism. His followers bore the name of Owenites, and were among the founders of the English Chartist movement. He died Nov. 19, 1858.
Owen ROBERT LATHAM, United States Senator from Oklahoma
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
ROBERT LATHAM, United States Senator from Oklahoma, born in Lynchburg, Va., in 1856. He graduated from the Washington and Lee University in 1877. After several years of teaching he studied law and was admitted to practice in 1880. He acted as United States Indian agent for the Five Civilized Tribes from 1885 to 1889. He was elected United States Senator in 1907 and was re-elected in 1913. In the Senate he acted as chairman of the Committee of Banking and Currency in the 65th Congress. OWEN MEREDITH. See LYTTON, EDWARD ROBERT.
Owen ROBERT DALE, an American diplomatist
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
ROBERT DALE, an American diplomatist, son of Robert; born in Glasgow, Scotland, Nov. 7, 1801; was educated in Switzerland; removed to the United States in 1825; was Representative to Congress from Indiana ( 1847); and minister to Naples ( 1858). During the Civil War he a prominent advocate of negro emancipation. Among his works are: "Moral Physiology" (1831); "Footfalls on the Boundary of Another World" (1860); "Beyond the Breakers" (1870), a novel; "Threading My Way" (1874). He died in Lake George, N. Y., June 17, 1877.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
Collier's, writing in 1921, calls Robert Owen a man who "attempted to found communist societies" and links his followers chiefly to Chartism; today he is remembered above all as a founder of the cooperative and trade union movements, and his model mill village at New Lanark, hardly mentioned here, was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2001. New Harmony, Indiana, the settlement that collapsed within about two years, survives as a preserved historic town and tourist site. The entry on Robert Latham Owen is oddly silent on his largest achievement: he co-sponsored the Glass-Owen Act of 1913 creating the Federal Reserve System. He was still a sitting senator when Collier's wrote; he left the Senate in 1925 and died in 1947, and his son-in-law's generation of Oklahoma politics is long gone.
Written for this edition, 2026.