operated on socialist principles, using time money that could be earned with an hour of labor and exchanged for goods that took the same amount of labor to make. at new harmony robert del owens edited the new harmony gazette which took aim at what they called the trinity of evils private property, irrational religion, and marriage, which in their view was based on the other two evils. like other 19 century utopian experiments, new harmony failed quickly, but robert dale owen continued to pursue his interest in social reform. with the feminist freethinker francis wright also born in scotland, he founded a community devoted to educating freed slaves. he wrote the first book advocating for birth control alecto to represent indiana in the house of representatives and the 1840 s and in that capacity he drafted a bill to create the smithsonian institution. he subsequently sat on his first board of regents and shared the smithsonian building committee which built what we know we n