Genesis of an Idea

I was first introduced to Robert Owen as a graduate student when I came across The Worldly Philosophers by Robert Heilbroner. Owen occupied a good portion of the chapter on Utopian Socialists. He was, as Heilbroner described him and I soon learned to appreciate, ". . . certainly the most romantic of that group of nineteenth-century protesters against raw capitalism."

If Robert Owen were nothing more than a "romantic protester," I might have paid no further attention. But there was more. When he was twenty, he applied for a situation as manager of one of the most advanced cotton spinning mill of its day. It was Heilbroner’s retelling of this amusing anecdote that caught my attention. You may want to read my version of this episode in the except below.

I have also included Chapter 1 as an except. The circumstances of Owen's death had been knocking around in my head for years, when finally during the Thanksgiving holiday several years ago, I decided to put my version on paper. I was so pleased with the outcome that I kept writing!