Broadside entitled 'Downfall of Socialism! Death of Robert Owen!'

Commentary

This political text begins: 'This is a curious Article on Socialism, extracted from the Glasgow Weekly Dispatch, and the reader cannot help but be amused at the death of the Founder of that System'. This sheet was reprinted for J. MacCulloch.

This text is vitriolic about Owen and his socialist doctrines. It is a piece of bitter satire, spelling out the author's problems with Owen through imagining Owen's death as he 'vomited up his plans of Social Wickedness'. The author sees socialism as an outrage against God and, at the end, wishes all its supporters dead.

Owen's enduring fame is due to his socialist legacy of his village of New Lanark, Scotland. Here working hours were cut, good housing was provided and the importance of education and recreation was stressed to the community. Although never taken particularly seriously, Owen enjoyed the friendship and patronage of a wide base of royalty, reformers, statesmen, politicians and activists.

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