Peter Cooper | |
|---|---|
 Portrait,c. 1870s | |
| Born | (1791-02-12)February 12, 1791 New York City, U.S. |
| Died | April 4, 1883(1883-04-04) (aged 92) New York City, U.S. |
| Burial place | Green-Wood Cemetery |
| Spouse | |
| Children | 2, includingEdward |
| Signature | |
 | |
Peter Cooper (February 12, 1791 – April 4, 1883) was an Americanindustrialist, inventor,philanthropist, and politician. He designed and built the first Americansteam locomotive, theTom Thumb, founded theCooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, served as its first president, and stood for election as theGreenback Party's candidate in the1876 presidential election.
Cooper began tinkering at a young age while working in various positions in New York City. He purchased a glue factory in 1821 and used that factory's profits to found the Canton Iron Works, where he earned even larger profits by fabricating machinery such as theTom Thumb. Cooper's success as a businessman and inventor continued over the ensuing decades, and he became the first mill operator to successfully useanthracite coal topuddle iron. He also developed numerous patents for products such asgelatin and participated in the laying of the firsttransatlantic telegraph cable.
During theGilded Age, Cooper became an ardent critic of thegold standard and the debt-based monetary system of bank currency, advocating instead for government-issuedbanknotes. Cooper was nominated for president at the1876 Greenback National Convention, and the Greenback ticket of Cooper andSamuel Fenton Cary won just under one percent of the popular vote in the1876 presidential election. His sonEdward and his son-in-lawAbram Hewitt both served asMayor of New York City.
Peter Cooper was born inNew York City ofDutch,English andHuguenot descent,[1] the fifth child of John Cooper, aMethodist hatmaker fromNewburgh, New York.[1][2] His family descended from Obidiah Cooper, who had settled in New York from England around 1662.[3] Cooper lived inPeekskill from a young age until age 17, when he returned to New York City to become an apprentice.[4] He worked as a coachmaker'sapprentice,cabinet maker, hatmaker, brewer and grocer,[1][5] and was throughout a tinkerer: he developed a cloth-shearing machine which he attempted to sell, as well as an endless chain he intended to be used to pullbarges and boats on the newly completedErie Canal (which was routed west to east across upperNew York State fromLake Erie to the upperHudson River) which its chief supporter, theGovernor of New York,De Witt Clinton approved of, but which Cooper was unable to sell.[1] During theWar of 1812, Cooper ran a wood mill which supplied the Americans throughout the war, though this venture failed after the war's conclusion and he sold the business as a furniture shop.[6]
In 1821, Cooper purchased a glue factory on Sunfish Pond[7] on east sideManhattan Island for $2,000 atKips Bay, where he had access to raw materials from the nearbyslaughterhouses, and ran it as a successful business for many years,[8] producing a profit of $10,000 (equivalent to roughly $200,000 in 21st century value today) within 2 years, developing new ways to produce glues and cements,gelatin,isinglass and other products, and becoming the city's premier provider totanners (leather), manufacturers ofpaints, anddry-goods merchants.[9] The effluent from his successful factory eventually polluted the pond so much that in 1839 it had to be drained and backfilled for eventual building construction.[9]
Having been convinced that the proposedBaltimore and Ohio Railroad would drive up prices for land inMaryland, Cooper used his profits to buy 3,000 acres (12 km2) of land there in 1828 and began to develop them, draining swampland and flattening hills, during which he discovered iron ore on his property. Seeing the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad as a natural market for iron rails to be made from his ore, he founded the Canton Iron Works inBaltimore, and when the railroad developed technical problems, he put together theTom Thumb steam locomotive for them in 1829 from various old parts, including musket barrels, and some small-scale steam engines he had fiddled with back in New York. The engine was a rousing success, prompting investors to buy stock in B&O, which enabled the company to buy Cooper's iron rails, making him what would be his first fortune.[9]
Cooper began operating an ironrolling mill in New York beginning in 1836, where he was the first to successfully useanthracite coal topuddle iron.[10] Cooper later moved the mill toTrenton, New Jersey, on theDelaware River to be closer to the sources of the raw materials the works needed. His son and son-in-law,Edward Cooper andAbram S. Hewitt, later expanded the Trenton facility into a giant complex employing 2,000 people, in which iron was taken from raw material to finished product.[11]
Cooper also operated a successful glue factory inGowanda, New York, that produced glue for decades.[12][13] A glue factory was originally started in association with the Gaensslen Tannery, there, in 1874, though the first construction of the glue factory's plant, originally owned by Richard Wilhelm and known as the Eastern Tanners Glue Company, began on May 5, 1904.[13] Gowanda, therefore, was known as America's glue capital.[13]
Cooper owned a number of patents for his inventions, including some for the manufacture ofgelatin, and he developed standards for its production. While hispatent for “Portable Gelatine” bears a remarkable resemblance to the description of the dessert,Jell-O, that product wastrademarked decades after Cooper's patent expired.[14]
Cooper later invested inreal estate andinsurance, and became one of the richest men inNew York City.[15][16] Despite this, he lived relatively simply in an age when the rich were indulging in more and more luxury. He dressed in simple, plain clothes, and limited his household to only two servants; when his wife bought an expensive and elaborate carriage, he returned it for a more sedate and cheaper one. Cooper remained in his home atFourth Avenue and28th Street even after theNew York and Harlem Railroad established freight yards where cattle cars were parked practically outside his front door, although he did move to the more genteelGramercy Park development in 1850.[15]
In 1854, Cooper was one of five men who met at the house ofCyrus West Field in Gramercy Park to form theNew York, Newfoundland and London Telegraph Company, and, in 1855, theAmerican Telegraph Company, which bought up competitors and established extensive control over the expanding American network[17] on the Atlantic Coast and in some Gulf coast states.[18] He was among those supervising the laying of the firstTransatlantic telegraph cable in 1858.[19]
During the 1830s Cooper designed the first steel chair in America, which was arocking chair. Cooper produced a functional, minimalist design radically different from the Victorian heavily decorated, ostentatious style of the time. Most rocking chairs had separate rockers fixed to regular chair legs, but Cooper's chair used the curve of its frame to ensure the rocking motion. Cooper's chair was made of steel or wrought iron with upholstery slung across the frame. The model was manufactured at R.W. Winfield & Co. in Britain. The firm exhibited examples of the chair at the Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of all Nations (Crystal Palace Exhibition) in 1851 and the Great London Exposition of 1862.[20][21]
In 1840, Cooper became analderman of New York City.
Prior to theCivil War, Cooper was active in theanti-slavery movement and promoted the application of Christian concepts to solve social injustice. He was a strong supporter of theUnion cause during the war and an advocate of the government issue of paper money.
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Influenced by the writings ofLydia Maria Child, Cooper became involved in the Indian reform movement, organizing the privately fundedUnited States Indian Commission. This organization, whose members includedWilliam E. Dodge andHenry Ward Beecher, was dedicated to the protection and elevation of Native Americans in the United States and the elimination of warfare in the western territories.
Cooper's efforts led to the formation of theBoard of Indian Commissioners, which oversawUlysses S. Grant's Peace Policy. Between 1870 and 1875, Cooper sponsored Indian delegations toWashington, D.C., New York City, and other Eastern cities. These delegations met with Indian rights advocates and addressed the public on United States Indian policy. Speakers included:Red Cloud,Little Raven, andAlfred B. Meacham and a delegation ofModoc andKlamath Indians.
Cooper was an ardent critic of the gold standard and the debt-based monetary system of bank currency. Throughout the depression from 1873 to 1878, he said that usury was the foremost political problem of the day. He strongly advocated a credit-based, Government-issued currency ofUnited States Notes. In 1883 his addresses, letters and articles on public affairs were compiled into a book,Ideas for a Science of Good Government.[22]
Cooper was encouraged to run in the1876 presidential election for theGreenback Party without any hope of being elected. His running mate was former U.S. Representative andprohibitionistSamuel Fenton Cary. The campaign cost more than$25,000.[citation needed] The election was won byRutherford Birchard Hayes of theRepublican Party. Cooper was surpassed by another unsuccessful candidate,Samuel J. Tilden of theDemocratic Party.
On December 18, 1813, Cooper married Sarah Bedell (1793–1869), who herself was of Huguenot descent.[23] Of their six children, only two survived past the age of four years: a son,Edward, and a daughter, Sarah Amelia.[24][25] Edward served asMayor of New York City, as would the husband of Sarah Amelia,Abram S. Hewitt, a man also heavily involved in inventions and industrialization.
Peter Cooper's granddaughters, Sarah Cooper Hewitt, Eleanor Garnier Hewitt and Amy Hewitt Green founded theCooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, then named the Cooper-Hewitt Museum, in 1895. It was originally part of The Cooper Union, but since 1967 has been a unit of theSmithsonian Institution.[26]
Cooper was aUnitarian who regularly attended the services ofHenry Whitney Bellows at theChurch of All Souls (New York),[27] and his views wereUniversalistic andnon-sectarian.[28] In 1873 he wrote:
I look to see the day when the teachers of Christianity will rise above all the cramping powers and conflicting creeds and systems of human device, when they will beseech mankind by all the mercies of God to be reconciled to the government of love, the only government that can ever bring the kingdom of heaven into the hearts of mankind either here or hereafter.[28]
Cooper had for many years held an interest in adult education: he had served as head of the Public School Society, a private organization which ran New York City's free schools using city money,[29] when it began evening classes in 1848.[30] Cooper conceived of the idea of having a free institute in New York, similar to theÉcole Polytechnique (Polytechnical School) inParis, which would offer free practical education to adults in the mechanical arts and science, to help prepare young men and women of the working classes for success in business.
In 1853, he broke ground for TheCooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, a private college in New York, completing the building in 1859 at the cost of $600,000. The Cooper Union offered open-admission night classes available to men and women alike, and attracted 2,000 responses to its initial offering, although 600 later dropped out. The classes were non-sectarian, and women were treated equally with men, although 95% of the students were male. Cooper started a Women's School of Design, which offered daytime courses in engraving, lithography, painting on china and drawing.[30]
The new institution soon became an important part of the community. TheGreat Hall was a place where the pressing civic controversies of the day could be debated, and, unusually, radical views were not excluded. In addition, the Union's library, unlike the nearbyAstor,Mercantile andNew York Society Libraries, was open until 10:00 at night, so that working people could make use of them after work hours.[30]
Today The Cooper Union[31] is recognized as one of the leading American colleges in the fields of architecture, engineering, and art.[citation needed] Carrying on Peter Cooper's belief that college education should be free, The Cooper Union awarded all its students with a full scholarship until fall 2014, when the college began charging tuition, in part, due to the financial impact of construction loans taken before theGreat Recession.[32] The college is currently implementing a financial plan to restore full-tuition scholarships for all its undergraduate students by 2029.[33]
In 1851, Cooper was one of the founders ofChildren's Village, originally an orphanage called "New York Juvenile Asylum", one of the oldest non-profit organizations in the United States.[34]
Cooper died on April 4, 1883, at the age of 92 and is buried inGreen-Wood Cemetery inBrooklyn,New York. The lot number of his current burial site is3932 & C.
Aside fromCooper Union, thePeter Cooper Village apartment complex inManhattan; the Peter Cooper Elementary School inRingwood, New Jersey; the Cooper School in Superior, Wisconsin, thePeter Cooper Station post office;Cooper Park in Brooklyn,Cooper Square in Manhattan, and Cooper Square inHempstead, New York, Peter Cooper Village Senior Section 8 Housing inWest Long Branch, New Jersey, are named in his honor.
Notes
Another great advantage would result from the avoidance of any misunderstanding between Great Britain and the United States – one such prevention would more than pay for the cable.
Our fifth child was my son Edward, who is still living....My sixth and last child, was our daughter Sarah Amelia, now Mrs. Hewitt.
Bibliography
peter cooper raymond.
| Academic offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| New title | President of Cooper Union 1859-1882 | Succeeded by |
| Party political offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| New political party | Greenback nominee forPresident of the United States 1876 | Succeeded by |
