New Harmony: Indiana's First Utopia

Introduction

Text-to-speech Audio

The Labyrinth of New Harmony was made by the Rappites in the nineteenth century for meditation. It is located on the main street south of town. The hedges in the shape of a maze was supposed to represent the issues in life, and completing the maze was symbolic to overcoming them. In 2008 a reconstruction was completed to restored the labyrinth to its original form based on archival information.

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Backstory and Context

Text-to-speech Audio

The Labyrinth of New Harmony was made by the Rappites in the nineteenth century for meditation. It is located on the main street south of town. The hedges in the shape of a maze was supposed to represent the issues in life, and completing the maze was symbolic to overcoming them. In 2008 a reconstruction was completed to restore the labyrinth to its original form based on archival information.

New Harmony was a settlement that had two failed attempts at communal living and is an important cultural center today. From 1814-1825 the Harmonists under Reverend George Rapp tried to rule a religious utopia serving God and always doing right by faith. From 1825-1826, and the Owenites with philanthropist leader Robert Owen valued equality and labor for all inhabitants. Many disputes occurred about how the community should be run that led to the division of New Harmony into smaller groups. This community shows a socialist way of living does not succeed in the forming country with American individualistic ideals.

Sources

Pitzer, D., & Elliott, J. (1979). New Harmony’s First Utopians, 1814–1824. Indiana Magazine of History. Retrieved from https://scholarworks.iu.edu/journals/index.php/imh/article/view/10180

Jackson, Nicholas. “New Harmony Labyrinth.” Atlas Obscura, 11 May 2011, www.atlasobscura.com/places/new-harmony-labyrinth.