Old Economy Village
Ambridge, Pennsylvania, United States
The preserved final town of the Harmony Society, the German Pietist communal group whose celibate, shared-property settlements lasted into the twentieth century.
George Rapp's Harmony Society practiced communal property, celibacy and millennial expectation across three American towns, and Economy, founded 1824-1825 in Ambridge, Pennsylvania, was the third and final one, home to the society for most of the nineteenth century. The site preserves the Feast Hall, the Rapp house, a Natural History Museum building, the formal garden and grotto, and the society's archive; the Harmonists' crafts ran from silk and wool to beer. Pennsylvania has administered it as a historic site since 1986, a National Historic Landmark.
The entry sits in conversation with the library's New Harmony entry: that town was the Harmonists' second home, this was their last and longest, and both carry the same German Pietist communal dream at different stages of its life.
Visiting
Old Economy Village is open Friday to Sunday only, April 10 through December 20, 2026 (Fri-Sat 10am to 4pm, Sun 12 to 4pm), admission $10 adult with discounts; docent tours at 10:30am, 12:30pm and 2pm; allow about two and a half hours.
Photo: Aerial view, [Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Baden_Old_Economy_aerial_20241116_(1).jpg), CC0, Designism.
Traditions from this region
Traditions historically rooted in this region — offered as background context, not as a claim about this particular place.
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