Historic New Harmony

I visited after a snow storm in the middle of winter which I don’t recommend because so much of the beauty is covered and so much of the historical significance of the town is covered so I will certainly be back in the spring or summer, especially for the many festivals and events they seem to have.
One thing I enjoyed so much about this place is how all the business owners are so invested in this town and went out of their way to tell us about upcoming events that we may want to be a part of. Well they talked me in to it… we’re coming back!
Since there was so much snow we just spent a lot of time driving in and around town and I must say, I just love the artsy, eclectic feel of this community. It’s almost like all the Deadheads retired here after Jerry died. It’s AMAZING! And no kidding, you could spend all day walking around just paying certain attention to all of the different architecture… no two buildings or homes are even close to being the same and so many of the Victorian homes are absolutely immaculate and a pure joy to look at!
See you soon New Favorite Town in Indiana!

Opened to the public in 1979, the Atheneum of Historic New Harmony is a classic architectural design by Richard Meier. It is a curious and dramatic experience to walk into a visitors center expressing such strong modernism while being introduced to 2 different communal communities from the early 19^th century. Read a description of the interior spaces of this building
Please view my photos to see what I captured of the exterior of the Atheneum which is sited on a far edge of the preserved village.
The 2 communities were the Harmonists and the Robert Owen Socialists. See
for more detailed information – For the Harmonists, New Harmony was their 2^nd site, and they were successful enough to be able to move to another location in PA. The Harmonists interacted with the Shakers which tends to be a more familiar community of fringe people, at least, in name. What is interesting is to think that an entire community (akin to what we call a development) was sold by the Harmonists to the Socialists. In the case of the Socialists, their community fell quickly into dissolution — a community with an absentee leader. To learn more about Robert Owen’s philosophy
Even by today’s standards in the use of a car to access this spot, New Harmony is not a point of geography one happens upon easily. This is a place for those who wish to learn more about what happened in the early 19^th century in the middle of the United States. Still, a certain degree of imagination and heightened interest is necessary in order to delve more deeply into the narrative here.

New Harmony was founded by the Harmonists, a communal religious group, in 1814. In 1824, the Harmonists left and sold the town to Robert Owen, a utopian socialist who established a commune there, complete with communal living, public education, and the abolition of private property and money. From its lofty beginnings, things turned out pretty much as you’d expect a social experiment like New Harmony to turn out: residents quarreled, public goods were neglected, and the town was dissolved within a few short years.
Well, sort of like the New Harmony of the early 19^th century, the New Harmony of today promises a lot more than it actually delivers. Useful information on the town, and the much-​vaunted «Atheneum» visitors’ center, is hard to come by; and the Disneyesque city streets, though clean and pleasant, comes off as sterile and uninteresting. Though I went there on a pleasant day in early May, the streets were empty and many of the shops were closed — even those with signs indicating that they ‘should’ be open. We eventually tried to satisfy our museum craving at the Working Men’s Institute Library and Museum, finding it open despite a sign indicating that it ‘should’ be closed! Much like the rest of New Harmony, the Working Men’s Institute sounded a lot better than it actually was.
Full disclosure, we got to the Atheneum at 3pm, and thus missed the last tour which left at 2. But the fact that no tours were listed on the website meant that we didn’t even know why we were going there or what the Atheneum was supposed to offer. The nice lady who greeted us told us that «the upstairs was closed», but it’s only now that I learn that the upstairs offers a museum and a film — two things that, like Socialism itself, sound nice in theory but are remarkably hard to enjoy in real life.
The upshot is that New Harmony is better in theory than it is in practice. In that sense, they seem to get the historical accuracy just right.