Dear Jean P.S., ten-part nonfiction
conclusion to four fiction “Dear Jean” letters, Karen Chadwick’s tribute to:
David Dale, A Life by David J. McLaren, Stenlake Publisher,
Ayrshire, Scotland, 2015, a truly beautiful new book rich with photos, docs,
maps, all supporting Dr. McLaren’s extensive research on David Dale, 1739-1806.
Dale was one of the first “Captains of Industry” at the dawn of the Industrial
Revolution with his new cotton yarn mill in New Lanark, Scotland beginning in
1786. I found this book fascinating for a few reasons, here’s one.
In 1799, Dale’s oldest
daughter, Anne Caroline, married Robert Owen. RO married into a pot of money.
In 1825, RO purchased a town from a departing Lutheran cult in the new state of
Indiana and renamed it New Harmony. RO took his passion for social engineering,
six of his well-educated adult children, were joined by other dreamers, and
attempted to create an intellectual communal experiment that failed two years
later. RO could talk the talk; he couldn’t walk the walk. In spite of this
expensive failure, RO became world famous for his radical ideas of how to shape
good humans. To this day, there is a “Robert Owen Society” in Japan, for
instance.
Flash forward to 1995 and my
new job in New Harmony as private secretary to Jane Blaffer Owen, JBO. She
married Kenneth Dale Owen, KDO, in 1941 and I worked for her when she was in
her 80s. She brought great wealth to the marriage as her Blaffer/Texas roots
were in Humble Oil and Texaco Oil, which morphed to Exxon. KDO was a descendant
of David Dale and Robert Owen, through Richard Dale Owen. Elsewhere on this
blog is their genealogy record. Wealth from the Dale/Owen legacy had evaporated
by KDO’s time. Young Jane Blaffer appreciated that this suitor was not from the
lazy wealthy class she grew up with and she was impressed that he had worked
his way through college. That credential and his notable name sealed the deal.
This wing of the Owen family
continued with the tradition of honoring David Dale. Kenneth and Jane gave the
Dale name as middle name to two of their daughters. The Blaffer wealth saved an
interesting portion of American history as Jane Blaffer Owen poured herself
into the restoration and renovation of New Harmony for over 70 years. I helped.
Dear Jean P.S. Part Six of
10
April 3, 2020
The
New Harmonists
The list of who contributed to the
development and reputation of New Harmony in 1825 and beyond is long. This is
only a partial list:
Robert Owen, his young adult
children Robert Dale Owen, William Dale Owen, David Dale Owen, Richard Dale
Owen, and Jane Dale Owen Fauntleroy. Also William Maclure, Thomas Say, Lucy
Sistare, Charles-Alexandre Lesueur, Josiah Warren, Marie Fretageot, Joseph Neef, Francis and Camilla Wright, James
Elliott, Thomas Mumford, and many more.
The Dale grandsons saw opportunity
in the new USA and were alert to take advantage of any open door.
For instance, Robert Dale Owen
served in the Indiana General Assembly, then on to work as U.S. Congressman. He
drafted a radical “unusual” legal document for his first marriage that
attempted to give his wife some equality. Many thinkers did not like this new
idea at all. In most of the USA, married women could not own property,
as they were property of their husbands. In early New Jersey, women
could vote — that is, women who owned property and were unmarried. If that
woman married, her property became his property, she became his property, and
she could not vote. Really. New Jersey solved that by taking away the vote from
any woman. RDO was passionate all his life for issues of free education, civil
rights, women’s equality, and birth control. He and others in New Harmony had a
successful newspaper, the New Harmony Gazette, that had national respect for
many years and gave voice to radical ideas of how best to craft this new
country.
William Dale Owen was the unlucky
son to accompany father, Robert Owen, RO, to help launch the grand dream of a
communal community in the empty town dad just bought. As you’ll remember, dad
left shortly, leaving the serious work to William. The socialist dream quickly
became a harsh bit of chaos as many landless people were arriving every day to
get a piece of the action. After all, RO had promised with all his popular
speeches on the East Coast, anyone who comes to be a part of our new town will
get a share! William suffered through it, and created a valuable piece of the
town dynamics, the Thespian Society, which had a long presence in the area. I
enjoy thinking about this, a speaking society, how to get strangers to speak
politely, listen carefully, respond with respect, agree to rules, oh, I bet
there were some strains there.
David Dale Owen had several turns
in his direction, and finally saw purpose with William Maclure’s work in
geology and a business extremely important to the new and expanding USA,
surveying. Seventy years earlier, George Washington had started his adult life
at 16 as a surveyor in the wilds of Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania.
Surveying was an honorable career for an educated man who could do the
difficult and demanding outdoor work. It was one of the most needed and
important considerations as the colonies/USA grabbed more and more land. How
else to sell the land? Gotta have things measured, evaluated, and documented
for government entity/seller and buyer to be on the same page. Did that
property have wetlands thus not suitable for farming? Did that land have
something that might be a valuable natural resource, such as a river, hardwood
forest, silver or gold? Coal? No one had any use for the worthless black sticky
stuff that occasionally percolated to the top dirt. Surveyors walked
methodically in precise quadrants of the land, and within each mile looked at
every feature, recorded the facts, and then the land could be properly sold.
Many mistakes were assumed, like the English Prairie arrivals who looked at the
Illinois prairie, not many trees, and assumed it would be great for farming.
Not so. The thick sod with 10 ft. roots on those prairies was impossible to
plow up for crop production. And how rain water drains there was such a problem
that traditional farming was way too much work for repeated failures. Ah,
another problem, those prairies were home to the buffalo, now who wants a herd
of buffalo heading to the front yard? Bang bang.
David
Dale Owen turned one of the Harmonist buildings, the Granary, the very one with
some slits for windows, to a school for educated gentlemen who wished to learn
how to survey. You had to be a “gentleman” who could read, do math, and write,
which at that time was white men from parents could afford basic education for
their children – unless you were a Scot from the Dale/Owen New Lanark Mills,
those men could read, write, and do numbers. A young Kentucky fellow, Abraham
Lincoln, pressed his father to allow him to go to the Survey School in New
Harmony, but father did not approve.
David Dale Owen became U.S.
Geologist, then state geologist for Indiana, Kentucky, and Arkansas, and New
Harmony became headquarters for the United States Geological Survey. He erected
a new building in New Harmony, known to this day as the Laboratory, and it
looks very much like the design of the first Smithsonian building in
Washington, D.C., the Castle, even used the same distinctive light brown
limestone for each building. An appendix with my manuscript has some
fascinating research that Dr. John Sears did regarding the curious possibility
that the same architect did both buildings. The Laboratory was intended as a
classier setting for the Survey School. In the early 20th century
the Laboratory became a dwelling for sixth generation Kenneth Dale Owen, who
was born there. Please review the front material here for placing KDO. But not
a home for his wife, my boss, no way. I visited KDO at the Laboratory often.
Until I pissed him off, that is.
A quick aside, David Dale Owen and
his brother, Robert Dale Owen, the congressman, both were quite interested in
what to do with the massive fortune given to the USA by an interesting Brit, last
name Smithson. Who said illegitimate children can’t inherit wealth? The times,
they were a changin’.
The
Legacy of New Lanark
That stilted system of “education
for sale” was beginning to change too, thanks to KDO’s ancestor Scot mill owner
David Dale educating the children workers. Such a thing had never been done in
human history until David Dale made it happen. This shift in human culture was
truly exciting, as it meant that culture was not just for the educated wealthy,
not anymore. And think of this: surely some of those orphan mill workers grew
to men and women who arrived in the USA and they could read, write and do
numbers, even though they had no proper upper-class cultural exposure. They
didn’t call it the Industrial Evolution.
What a joy to tell you that New Lanark
Mills, New Lanark, Scotland, is now a World Heritage Site, with tours,
accommodations, and programs for interested guests. They
have been creating a most interesting hand embroidered quilt with history of
Robert Owen and his purchase of New Harmony. Contact them here: trust@newlanark.org
Richard Dale Owen, the youngest of
the Owen sons, arrived in New Harmony after Plan A fizzled. He became
interested in geology, assisted his brother with that work, then became an
officer in the U.S. Infantry, then a Union officer during the U.S. Civil War.
He went on to teach natural science at Indiana University, became the first
President of Purdue University, untangled himself from that to give more time
to IU, all while maintaining a home base in New Harmony. Kenneth Dale Owen,
KDO, is from this part of the Owen family. The way Richard died is so gruesome
I won’t bring you down with it. Be careful what you drink.
The only Dale granddaughter to come
was Jane Dale Owen. She was 25, had buried her mother and two sisters in
Scotland, and then joined her remaining siblings in New Harmony. She married,
became Jane Dale Owen Fauntleroy, had children and an interesting respectable
life, additionally was a trusted editor of all her brothers written works. One
of her children, Constance Owen Fauntleroy, started the first literary women’s
club, The Minerva Society, in America in 1859 in New Harmony.
We see that though many newcomers
were attracted to New Harmony for its religious “freedom,” the town also lured
folks with opposite belief. Some, like James Elliott, from the English Prairie
group, arrived, bought land, and adamantly objected to RO’s views on religion.
Un-harmony, eh?
An Englishman, Thomas Mumford,
arrived in New Harmony as a young man with no wealth yet had just completed his
apprenticeship as a builder in England. He was quickly employed by the
Maclure/Fretageot “School of Industry” as a supervisor and the Mumford DNA
continues to enhance the area to this day.
You might remember this passage
earlier, from English Prairie resident Eliza Flower, “We eat with the
servants!” What she directly writes to a relative who might arrive is this
warning that things are very different in the USA as opposed to life in Great
Britain. There, the servant class was a long-established set of cultural hard
and fast rules. No servant ate with the boss or family. The arriving Europeans
were quickly realizing that the Americans were not playing the servant game
under old rules. This was particularly true in outlying USA where all hands
were needed to survive, and servants/workers expected, demanded, and got
respect.
Yes! How I wish I could report that
many of the support staff for my boss and her husband at the end of the 20th
century were insistent on receiving respect. Yet they were most often treated
like old world servant staff, kept in fear that “this might be your last day if
you don’t please me.” How many new helpers did I see running from KDO’s kitchen
door, afraid for their physical safety as he angrily yelled and waved his
walking cane at them? For that wealthy man, there were always replacements, why
be kind to anyone who displeases you? His long time best servant, Aggie,
learned early on to hide when he was angry, which was often. If this bothers
you, don’t buy my book when it arrives at your favorite bookstore. I watched
for over six years of unbelievable yet true human dynamics, and this Northern
union gal has a few things to say. One of my favorite musicians, Scot Dougie
MacLean, has a perfect song about this, “Rank and Roses.” He gives clear
opinion of powerful people and how they take advantage of their support staff.
Many of his tunes are to this point, such as “Thundering In.” Dougie
understands.
Now here’s a strange one who also
visited New Harmony quite often in the early years, definitely a part of the
intellectual milieu. No one else like this one, do you like cool stories that
go bad?
To be continued
* * * * * * * * * * *
Citations
and Bibliography
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Cep, Casey. Book review Finish The
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Cole,
Margaret. Robert Owen of New Lanark.
Augustus M. Kelley, Publishers, New York, 1953 and 1969. Print.
Dickens,
Charles. A Tale of Two Cities. 1859.
Print.
Dickmeyer,
Elisabeth Reuther. Putting the World
Together, My Father Walter Reuther: The Liberal Warrior. LivingForce
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DuVernay,
Ava. Director, When They See Us. Netflix. 2019. Film.
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Joel.
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The Passenger Pigeon’s Flight to Extinction. Bloomsbury, USA, New York.
2014. Print.
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David J. David Dale, A Life. Stenlake Publishing Ltd. 2015.
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David J. David Dale of New Lanark, A Bright Luminary to Scotland. Caring
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David J. David Dale of New Lanark. Milngavie: Heatherbank Press. 1983.
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MacLean,
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John.
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Mira. Director. Queen of Katwe. Disney/ESPN. 2016. Film.
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Robert. A New View of Society. 1813. Print.
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David. “The Trigger.” Smithsonian. October 2019. Print.
Walker,
Janet R. and Burkhardt, Richard W. Eliza
Julia Flower, Letters of an English Gentlewoman: Life on the Illinois-Indiana
Frontier 1817-1861. Ball State University. 1991. Print.
Walker,
Janet R. Wonder Workers on the
Wabash. Historic New Harmony.
1999. Print.
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Leonard. Maclure of New Harmony.
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Other web sources include:
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