on spiritualism; and Threading My Way (1874), his autobiography. Owen also wrote several articles that were published in the Atlantic Monthly and Scribner's Monthly. In 1875 Owen suffered a mental breakdown that was severe enough for him to be hospitalized at the Indiana Hospital for the Insane in Indianapolis, where he underwent three months of treatment. Owen recovered from the illness, was released from the hospital, and resumed writing. On 23 June 1876, a year before his death, Owen married Lottie Walton Kellogg at Caldwell, New York. Death and legacy On 24 June 1877, Owen died at his summer home at Crosbyville on Lake George, New York. Initially he was buried in the town of Lake George in Warren County, New York. Later, his remains were exhumed and interred at New Harmony, Indiana, beside his first wife, Mary Jane Owen. One of Owen's most significant legacies in Indiana was to secure the inclusion of an article in the Indiana Constitution of 1851 that provided tax-supported funding for a uniform system of free public schools and established the position of Indiana Superintendent of Public Instruction. His early efforts to protect women's rights were another of his political legacies. Although he was unsuccessful in adding provisions to protect women's rights to Indiana's state constitution of 1851, his efforts paved the way for others to follow. Eventually, Indiana laws granted women's property and voting rights, as well as greater freedom in divorce. As a U.S. Congressman, Owen introduced federal legislation that founded the Smithsonian Institution in 1846. He was also a member of the Smithsonian Institution's first Board of Regents and its Building Committee. His vision for the Smithsonian Institution Building, along with the preliminary plans and suggestions made by his brother, David Dale Owen, and architect Robert Mills, influenced architect James Renwick Jr.'s design for the Romanesque Revival-style building in Washington, D.C. Owen's impact on the issues of slavery and emancipation is less direct. In a series of open letters he wrote in 1862 and in publications that followed, Owen encouraged the abolition of slavery on moral grounds, supported general emancipation, and suggested that the federal government should provide assistance to freedmen. Some historians have concluded that these open letters and Civil War-era pamphlets "helped immeasurably to solidify public opinion" in favor of emancipation. Honors and tributes The town of Dale, Indiana, was named in Owen's honor. In 1911, the women of