[4][5] The State of Indiana created the first New Harmony Memorial Commission in 1937 to help preserve and protect the community's history.

[7] In 1977 National Park Service historian Joseph Mendinghall prepared a nomination for 19 properties with ties to the Harmonist/Owenite era, 1814 to 1867.

[1] The boundary increase included resources dating from 1825 to 1867, the period when New Harmony was purchased by Robert Owen until the Owenite influence on the town waned after the American Civil War.

[6] Other sites within the district include Philip Johnson's Roofless Church; New Harmony's Atheneum, an award-winning contemporary design by Richard Meier, completed in 1979, that serves as the visitors center for touring the historic district; and Maple Hill Cemetery.

The National Historic Landmark nomination for the district's boundary increase identified 59 contributing and 99 noncontributing structures.

[13] The district includes reconstructed log cabins, a potter's shop, and barns representative of early Harmonist structures.

Native American mounds from the Middle Woodland Period more than two thousand years old are also found on the cemetery grounds.

Other notable Harmonist sites and structures include the Rope Walk, part of the original 1,100-foot walk used to stretch, dry, and twist hemp into rope[15] and the Harmonist Labyrinth, replanted and rebuilt in 1939 near its original site.

Originally a Harmonist dormitory, the Owen community used it as a family dwelling, warehouse, and a place for public events.

The David Lenz House, circa 1822, is a timber frame, two-story residence typical of the Harmonist period.

The Fauntleroy's daughter, Constance, organized the Minerva Society, a women's literary club, in the home's parlor in 1859.

Two properties built outside the district's period of significance of 1814 to 1867 were grandfathered from the 1965 National Register designation because they relate to the continued work of the Workingman's Institute, founded by geologist and philanthropist William Maclure in 1838.