Biohazard and Pathogen Disinfection in New Harmony, IN

New Harmony is a historic town on the Wabash River in Posey County, Indiana, famous as the site of two successive early American utopian experiments.

The town was founded in 1814 by the Harmony Society, a German Pietist group led by George Rapp, who assembled some 20,000 acres along the Wabash and built a thriving communal town of brick homes, mills, vineyards and factories.

In 1825 the Harmonists sold the entire town — land and buildings included — to Welsh industrialist and social reformer Robert Owen for $150,000, then returned to Pennsylvania to found the town of Economy.

Owen renamed the town New Harmony and tried to create a model community based on education, science and communal living, but the experiment broke apart within a few years, by 1827.

In January 1826 a keelboat nicknamed the 'Boatload of Knowledge' brought scientists and educators to New Harmony, including geologist William Maclure and naturalist Thomas Say.

New Harmony residents established Indiana's first public library, a civic drama club, and a public school system open to both men and women.

The Workingmen's Institute, established in New Harmony in 1838, is Indiana's oldest continuously operating library, museum and archive.

Robert Owen's son Robert Dale Owen became an Indiana congressman who sponsored the legislation creating the Smithsonian Institution, while another son, Richard Owen, served as the first president of Purdue University.

New Harmony served as the second headquarters of the U.S. Geological Survey, cementing its reputation as a center of early American science.

Many Harmonist-era buildings survive in the New Harmony Historic District, alongside modern landmarks such as the Roofless Church and the Atheneum visitors center designed by architect Richard Meier.