33 Facts About Peter Cooper

Peter Cooper was an American industrialist, inventor, philanthropist, and politician.

Peter Cooper designed and built the first American steam locomotive, the Tom Thumb, founded the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, served as its first president, and stood for election as the Greenback Party's candidate in the 1876 presidential election.

Peter Cooper began tinkering at a young age while working in various positions in New York City.

Peter Cooper 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 assembling the Tom Thumb.

Peter Cooper developed numerous patents for products such as gelatin and participated in the laying of the first transatlantic telegraph cable.

Peter Cooper was nominated for president at the 1876 Greenback National Convention, and the Greenback ticket of Peter Cooper and Samuel Fenton Cary won just under one percent of the popular vote in the 1876 general election.

Peter Cooper was born in New York City of Dutch, English and Huguenot descent, the fifth child of John Cooper, a Methodist hatmaker from Newburgh, New York.

Peter Cooper began operating an iron rolling mill in New York beginning in 1836, where he was the first to successfully use anthracite coal to puddle iron.

Peter Cooper later moved the mill to Trenton, New Jersey, on the Delaware River to be closer to the sources of the raw materials the works needed.

Peter Cooper operated a successful glue factory in Gowanda, New York, that produced glue for decades.

Peter Cooper owned a number of patents for his inventions, including some for the manufacture of gelatin, and he developed standards for its production.

Peter Cooper later invested in real estate and insurance, and became one of the richest men in New York City.

Peter Cooper 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.

Peter Cooper remained in his home at Fourth Avenue and 28th Street even after the New York and Harlem Railroad established freight yards where cattle cars were parked practically outside his front door, although he did move to the more genteel Gramercy Park development in 1850.

In 1854, Peter Cooper was one of five men who met at the house of Cyrus West Field in Gramercy Park to form the New York, Newfoundland and London Telegraph Company, and, in 1855, the American Telegraph Company, which bought up competitors and established extensive control over the expanding American network on the Atlantic Coast and in some Gulf coast states.

Peter Cooper was among those supervising the laying of the first Transatlantic telegraph cable in 1858.

Peter Cooper produced a functional, minimalist design radically different from the Victorian heavily decorated, ostentatious style of the time.

Peter Cooper's chair was made of steel or wrought iron with upholstery slung across the frame.

In 1840, Peter Cooper became an alderman of New York City.

Peter Cooper was a strong supporter of the Union cause during the war and an advocate of the government issue of paper money.

Between 1870 and 1875, Peter Cooper sponsored Indian delegations to Washington, DC, New York City, and other Eastern cities.

Peter Cooper was an ardent critic of the gold standard and the debt-based monetary system of bank currency.

Peter Cooper strongly advocated a credit-based, Government-issued currency of United States Notes.

Peter Cooper was encouraged to run in the 1876 presidential election for the Greenback Party without any hope of being elected.

At the age of 85 years, Peter Cooper is the oldest person ever nominated by any political party for President of the United States.

Peter Cooper was a Unitarian who regularly attended the services of Henry Whitney Bellows at the Church of All Souls, and his views were Universalistic and non-sectarian.

Peter 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, when it began evening classes in 1848.

Peter Cooper conceived of the idea of having a free institute in New York, similar to the Ecole Polytechnique in Paris, 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.

Peter 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.

Peter Cooper started a Women's School of Design, which offered daytime courses in engraving, lithography, painting on china and drawing.

Today Peter Cooper Union is recognized as one of the leading American colleges in the fields of architecture, engineering, and art.

In 1851, Peter Cooper was one of the founders of Children's Village, originally an orphanage called "New York Juvenile Asylum", one of the oldest non-profit organizations in the United States.

Peter Cooper died on April 4,1883, at the age of 92 and is buried in Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York.