accepted another
profitable partnership in Manchester, and it was at this time that he
became active in social reform work. As a member of an important
literary and philosophical society, he was thrown much into the company
of men distinguished in all walks of life, one of his friends and
admirers being the poet Coleridge. Here he began that agitation which
led to the passing of the very first factory act of Sir Robert Peel, in
1802. The suffering of the children moved his great humane heart to
pity. He well knew that his own wealth and the wealth of his
fellow-capitalists had been purchased at a terrible cost in child life.
He was only a philanthropist as yet; he saw only the pitiful waste of
life involved, and sought to impress men of wealth with what he felt.
His mind was constantly occupied with plans for practical, constructive
philanthropy upon a scale never before attempted.

On the first day of the nineteenth century, Owen entered upon the
wonderful philanthropic career at New Lanark, which attracted universal
attention, and ultimately led him to those social experiments and
theories which won for him the title of "Father of Modern Socialism."
We have already seen what the conditions were in the "model factory"
when Owen assumed control. His influence was at once directed to the
task of ameliorating the condition of the work people. He shortened the
hours of labor, introduced sanitary reforms, protected the people
against the exploitation of traders through a vicious credit system,
opening a store and supplying them with goods at cost, and established
infant schools, the first of their kind, for the care and education of
children from two years of age and upward. Still, the workers themselves
were suspicious of this man who, so different from other employers, was
zealous in doing things for them. He really knew nothing of the working
class, and it had never occurred to him that they might do anything for
themselves. New Lanark under Owen was, to use the phrase which Mr. Ghent
has adopted from Fourier, "a benevolent feudalism." Owen complains
pathetically, "Yet the work people were systematically opposed to every
change which I proposed, and did whatever they could to frustrate my
object."[24]

Opportunity to win the affection and confidence of his employees came to
Owen at last, and he was not slow to embrace it. In 1806 the United
States, in consequence of a diplomatic rupture with England, placed an
embargo