Robert Dale Owen (1801-1877), Scottish-born American legislator, was conspicuous among radicals in the 1820s and then won stature as an exponent of social legislation.

Born in Glasgow, Scotland, on Nov. 9, 1801, Robert Dale Owen, the eldest son of Robert Owen, attended the school his father had established at New Lanark. After studying for 4 years at Hofwyl, Switzerland, he came home to head his old school, which he celebrated in his An Outline of the System of Education at New Lanark (1824).

In 1825 Owen joined his father in his New Harmony, Ind., experiment, where he taught and edited its Gazette. He was impressed by the idealism of the social reformer Frances Wright, who was at New Harmony in 1825, and toured Europe with her. When Owen returned to New Harmony he found it in decay; still bent on social change, he organized a group of "Free Enquirers" who repudiated religion, exalted education...