However, the connections between the social reconstruction and cotton businesses are important. .
Philanthropic practices were not new in Owen's period. David Dale was a well known philanthropist in the period when New Lanark was under his management. He settled in Glasgow in the 1760s, where he started out as a clerk of a silk merchant, from whom he gained experiences in textile trading, and later on he formed partnership with Archibald Paterson, who shared the same religious and provided financial backing to Dale. Their textile trading expanded rapidly and simultaneously with the textile trading broom of Scotland in the late 1770s. At the same time his political and commercial figures in Glasgow became prominent that he was assigned as a member of merchant guild and a burgess of the city. Like a number of Glasgow yarn dealers, Dale was unable to obtain sufficient fine yarn in Scotland, and was forced to import yarn from the other continents. In 1777, Dale enhanced his financial position through a marriage with Anne Caroline Campbell, a daughter of a wealthy landowner. In 1782 he became the founding member of the Glasgow Chamber of Commerce, which took active part in improving legislation about cotton and linen goods. In a opportunity which was setup by the Chamber, Dale met a key figure in his life, Richard Arkwright. Arkwright was a famous English inventor and businessman. With his innovative water-frame, which improved the efficiency of yarn manufacturing, Arkwright formed partnership with Dale and established the very first cotton mill at New Lanark, for its natural power from the Falls of Clyde. .
Dale's initiative in building the factory in New Lanark was probably driven by the innovative invention of Arkwright, the geographic previlege of the Falls of Clyde, and, most importantly, his commercial and financial connections to Glasgow. The site was laid over several landlords' properties in order to establish the 100-ft-subterranean-passage, into which water from the Falls was routed.