- Peter Cooper
Infobox Person
name = Peter Cooper
image_size = 210px
caption = Peter Cooper
birth_date = birth date|1791|2|12|mf=y
birth_place =New York, New York , U.S.
death_date = death date and age|1883|4|4|1791|2|12|mf=y
death_place =
occupation =Industrialist ,Inventor ,Philanthropist
spouse = Sarah Cooper
parents =
children =Peter Cooper (
February 12 ,1791 –April 4 ,1883 ) was an Americanindustrialist ,inventor ,philanthropist , and candidate forPresident of the United States .Biography
Peter Cooper was born in
New York City , the son of Dutch descendants. He had little formal schooling and worked in the family trade ofhatmaking . He then worked as a coachmaker'sapprentice ,cabinet maker ,grocer and was involved in themanufacturing and selling of cloth-shearing machines. He designed and built the first locomotive in the United States, the Tom Thumb.In 2006, he was inducted into the
National Inventors Hall of Fame .Industry
In about 1828, he started a successful glue and
isinglass factory in New York, before building theCanton Iron Works near Baltimore in 1830. There he manufactured the firststeam power edrailroad locomotive made in America, which was called "Tom Thumb". The engine ran successfully on theBaltimore and Ohio Railroad onAugust 28 ,1830 .He then erected a rolling mill and an iron mill in
New York City , where he was the first to successfully useanthracite coal topuddle iron . In 1845, he moved his machinery toTrenton, New Jersey , where he built the largest rolling-mill in theUnited States for producing railroad iron. In 1854,Trenton Iron Company , which was run by Cooper's son,Edward Cooper , and his son-in-law,Abram S. Hewitt , produced the first structuralwrought iron beams.Politics
In 1840, he became an
alderman in New York City. As a prosperous businessman, he conceived of the idea of having a free institute in New York, similar to theÉcole Polytechnique (Polytechnical School) in Paris. He erected a building and endowed art schools, spending between $600,000 and $700,000, for preparing young men and women of the working classes for business. In 1858, he presented theCooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art to the City of New York.In 1854, Cooper was one of five men who met at the house of
Cyrus West Field and formed theNew York, Newfoundland and London Telegraph Company . He was among those supervising the laying of the firstTransatlantic telegraph cable in 1858. He also patented the first gelatin dessert, which later became better known by the brand nameJell-O .Prior to the Civil War, Cooper was active in the anti-slavery movement and promoted the application of Christian concepts to solve social injustice. He was a strong supporter of the Union cause during the American Civil War and an advocate of the government issue of paper money.
Influenced by the writings of
Lydia 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 the Board of Indian Commissioners, which oversawUlysses S. Grant 's Peace Policy. Between 1870 and 1875, Cooper sponsored Indian delegations to Washington 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 1873-78, he said that usury was the foremost political problem of the day. He strongly advocated a credit-based, Government-issued currency of
United States Note s. He outlined his ideas in his 1883 book [http://yamaguchy.netfirms.com/7897401/cooper/cooper_index.html "Ideas for a Science of Good Government"]Presidential candidacy
Cooper was encouraged to run in the 1876 presidential election for the Greenback Party without any hope of being elected. His running mate was
Samuel Fenton Cary . The campaign cost more than $25,000.The election was won by
Rutherford Birchard Hayes of the Republican Party. Cooper was surpassed by another unsuccessful candidate: Samuel Jones Tilden of the Democratic Party.Death
Peter Cooper died on
April 4 ,1883 . He died at the age of 92. He is buried inGreen-Wood Cemetery inBrooklyn ,New York .Trivia
* In 1845, Cooper was awarded a patent for a gelatin dessert. In 1897, Pearl B. Wait began marketing Jell-O.
* In 1943, a United StatesLiberty ship named the SS "Peter Cooper" was launched. It was renamed the SS "Samarkand" after being loaned to the British. In 1971, the ship was scrapped.
* His son, Edward Cooper, wasMayor of New York City from 1879 to 1880.
* New York'sPeter Cooper Village was named in his honor.
* Cooper learned finance underAlbert Gallatin , who wasSecretary of the Treasury from 1801-14. He was also Vice-President of the New York Board of Currency for a while. As a result, Cooper wrote much about financial topics. One of his more interesting assertions was in his 1883 book "Ideas for a Science of Good Government", in which he claimed that the prime cause of theAmerican Revolution was Parliament's outlawing of theColonial Scrip currency in 1764, which caused an economic depression by outlawing the medium of exchange and created widespread dissatisfaction. Cooper writes:"After Franklin had explained…to the British Government as the real cause of prosperity, they immediately passed laws, forbidding the payment of taxes in that money. This produced such great inconvenience and misery to the people, that it was the principal cause of the Revolution. A far greater reason for a general uprising, than the Tea and Stamp Act, was the taking away of the paper money." [http://www.heritech.com/yamaguchy/cooper/cooper_208.html]
ources
*cite web|url=http://www.asme.org/Communities/History/Resources/Cooper_Peter.cfm|title=Cooper, Peter|work=Mechanical Engineering Biographies Throughout Time|publisher=ASME|accessdate=2008-05-01
External links
* [http://www.uua.org/uuhs/duub/articles/petercooper.html Comprehensive Biography by Nathan C. Walker]
* [http://www.cooper.edu/engineering/chemechem/general/cooper.html Facts About Peter Cooper and The Cooper Union]
* [http://www.ringwoodmanor.com/peo/ch/pc/pc.htm Brief biography]
* [http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=229 Find-A-Grave profile for Peter Cooper]
* [http://www.yamaguchy.netfirms.com/7897401/cooper/cooper_index.html Ideas for a Science of Good Government] Addresses, Letters and Articles by Peter Cooper
* [http://www.petercooper.info Extensive Information about Peter Cooper]
* [http://www.petercooper.info/html/HWautobiography.pdf Images of Peter Cooper's Autobiography]
* [http://www.petercooper.info/html/autobiography.pdf Peter Cooper's Dictated Autobiography]
* [http://www.archive.org/details/deathofslavery00cooprich "The death of slavery" by Peter Cooper at archive.org] succession box
title=Greenback Party presidential candidate
before="(none)"
after=James Baird Weaver
years=1876 (lost)
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