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See also: American manufacturer, inventor and philanthropist, was See also: born in New See also: York city on the 12th of See also: February 1791
.
His grandfathers and his See also: father served in the War of American Independence
.
He received practically no schooling, but worked with his father at See also: hat-making in New York city, at See also: brewing in See also: Peekskill, at brick-making in Catskill, and again at brewing in See also: Newburgh
.
At seventeen he was apprenticed to a coach-builder in New York city
.
On coming of age he got employment at Hempstead, Long See also: Island, makingmachines for shearing See also: cloth; three years afterwards he set up in this business for himself, having bought the See also: sole right to manufacture such machinery in the See also: state of New York
.
Business prospered during the War of 1812, but See also: fell off after the See also: peace
.
He turned his See also: shop into a furniture factory; soon sold this and for a See also: short See also: time was. engaged in the grocery business on the site of the See also: present See also: Bible See also: House, opposite See also: Cooper Union; and then invested in a glue and isinglass factory, situated for twenty-one years in Manhattan (where the
See also: Park Avenue Hotel was built later) and then in See also: Brooklyn
.
About 1828 he built the See also: Canton Iron See also: Works in Baltimore, See also: Maryland, the foundation of his See also: great See also: fortune
.
The Baltimore & See also: Ohio railway was to See also: cross his See also: property, and, after various inventions aiming to do away with the loco-See also: motive See also: crank and thus save two-fifths of the steam, in 1830 he designed and constructed (largely after plans made two years before) the first steam See also: locomotive built in See also: America; though only a small See also: model it proved the practicability of using steam power for working that See also: line
.
The "Tom Thumb," as Cooper called the locomotive, was about the See also: size of a See also: modern See also: hand-See also: car; as the natural draft was far from sufficient, Cooper devised a blowing apparatus
.
Selling his Baltimore works, he built, in 1836, in partnership with his See also: brother See also: Thomas, a
See also: rolling See also: mill in New York; in 1845 he removed it to Trenton, New
See also: Jersey, where iron structural beams were first made in 1854 and the Bessemer See also: process first tried in America in 1856; and at See also: Philippsburg, New Jersey, he built the largest blast See also: furnace in the country at that time
.
He built other foundries at See also: Ringwood, New Jersey, and at Durham, Pennsylvania; bought iron mines in See also: northern New Jersey, and carried the ore thence by See also: railways to his mills
.
Actively interested with CyrusSee also: Field in the laying of the first
See also: Atlantic See also: cable, he was president of the New York, Newfound-See also: land & See also: London Telegraph See also: Company, and his frequent See also: cash advances made the success of the company possible; he was president of the See also: North American Telegraph Company also, which controlled more than one-See also: half of the telegraph lines of the See also: United States
.
For his See also: work in advancing the iron See also: trade he received the Bessemer gold medal from the Iron and See also: Steel Institute of Great Britain in 1879
.
He took a prominent See also: part in educational affairs, strongly opposed the See also: Roman Catholic claims for public funds for parochial See also: schools, and conducted the See also: campaign of the See also: Free School Society to its successful issue in 1842, when a state See also: law was passed forbidding the support from public funds of any "religious sectarian See also: doctrine." He is probably best known, however, as the founder of the Cooper Union (q.v.)
.
Cooper was an early advocate of the emancipation and the enlistment in the Union army of See also: Southern negroes, and he upheld the administration of Lincoln
.
Though he had been a hard-See also: money Democrat, he joined the Greenback party after the See also: Civil War, and in 1876 was its See also: candidate for the See also: presidency, but received only 81,740 out of the 8,412,833 votes cast
.
He died in New York city on the 4th of See also: April 1883
.
He published The See also: Political and See also: Financial Opinions of See also: Peter Cooper, with an Auto-biography of his Early See also: Life (1877), and Ideas for a Science of See also: Good See also: Government, in Addresses, Letters and Articles on a Strictly See also: National Currency, Tariff and Civil Service (1883)
.
There is a brief biography by R
.
W
.
See also: Raymond, Peter Cooper (See also: Boston, 1900)
.
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He also invented Jell-o
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