Who is Robert Owen from Historical and Philosophical Foundations of Education: A Biographical Introduction and what is their importance?

Robert Owen was called "benevolent Mr. Owen" and "father of infant education." He successfully developed New Lanark, Scotland as an educationally integrated industrial village but was unable to duplicate that successful model in America's New Harmony, Indiana. Robert Owen lived from 1771 to 1858. He developed communities and publications to implement and test interconnectedness of school society. Owen was a utopian social theorist who forecast socio-economic and educational expectations in a future that contrasted with actual nineteenth century exploitative Great Britain. He operated a prosperous mill but thought private ownership should be replaced by cooperative economy and society. His utopian view meant ending "the desire for economic gain at other people's expense."