The Harmony Society was a Christian theosophy and pietist society founded in Iptingen, Germany, in 1785. Due to religious persecution by the Lutheran Church and the government in Württemberg, the Harmony Society moved to the United States in 1803–1804, initially purchasing 3,000 acres (12 km²) of land in Butler County, Pennsylvania. On February 15, 1805, they, together with about 400 followers, formally organized the Harmony Society, placing all their goods in common.
The Society was founded and led by Johann Georg Rapp (1757–1847) and his adopted son, Frederick (Reichert) Rapp (1775–1834), and lasted for 100 years – roughly from 1805 until 1905. Members of the society were sometimes called Harmonists, Harmonites, or Rappites. The Harmony Society is best known for its worldly successes, eventually building three successive communities, first at Harmony, Pennsylvania (1804–1814), then New Harmony, Indiana (1814–1824), finally settling in Economy (now Ambridge, Pennsylvania).
Read more about this topic: Old Economy Village
Famous quotes containing the words harmony and/or society:
“And yet it is a kind of inward feast,
A harmony that sounds within the breast,
An odour, light, embrace, in which the soul doth rest,”
—Giles Fletcher, The Younger (1585–1623)
“In abnormal times like our own, when institutions are changing rapidly in several directions at once and the traditional framework of society has broken down, it becomes more and more difficult to measure any type of behavior against any other.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)