Peter Kuper ( English Peter Cooper ; 1791 , New York - 1883 , New York ) - American inventor , industrialist and philanthropist .
| Peter Cooper | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Date of Birth | February 12, 1791 |
| Place of Birth | |
| Date of death | April 4, 1883 (92 years old) |
| Place of death | |
| Citizenship |  USA |
| Occupation | , , , , |
| Children | |
| Awards and prizes | US National Inventors Hall of Fame |
| Autograph | |
Content
Biography
He was born on February 12, 1791 in New York and came from the Dutch and English Huguenots. He was the fifth child of John Cooper, who served in a Methodist church in Newburgh , New York .
He grew up in poverty, was engaged in various jobs - he was a brewer and grocer. Already in his youth, he thought about ways to facilitate the work of man. In 1821, Cooper bought a glue factory in Manhattan for $ 2,000, with access to inexpensive raw materials from nearby slaughterhouses. The business has become very successful, bringing for many years a profit of the order of $ 10,000 dollars (currently this amount is equivalent to approximately $ 200,000). In addition to glue, the factory began to produce other products based on it, supplying products to leather and dyeing enterprises.
Having become rich, Peter Cooper donated $ 800,000 to organize a number of educational institutions for the working class. In the so-called Cooper Institute, which he founded in New York , various courses of technical knowledge were taught free of charge. The institute organized libraries, a reading room, museums of inventions, a chemical laboratory, a physics room, free schools of engraving and photography. His speeches were published under the title: “Ideas for a science of good government in addresses, letters and articles” ( 1883 ).
In the 1876 election, 85-year-old Cooper ran for the US presidency from the marginal Greenbacker Party , but won no more than 1% of the vote.
He died on April 4, 1883 in New York. Buried in Green Wood Cemetery . [one]
Family
In 1813, Cooper married Sarah Cooper ( Sarah Bedell Cooper , 1793-1869) [2] . Of their six children born, only two survived:
- son Edward ( English Edward Cooper , 1824-1905) - for some time served as mayor of New York ;
- daughter Sarah Amelia ( English Sarah Amelia Cooper Hewitt , 1830-1912) - was married to Abram Hewitt ( English Abram Stevens Hewitt , 1822-1903), an American industrialist and politician (congressman).
Memory
Cooper Union College was named after him; residential area in the East Side area in Downtown Borough Manhattan - Styvesant Town - Peter-Cooper Village ; one of the schools in Ringwood , New Jersey ; Cooper Station New York Post Office; Cooper Square in Manhattan.
Interestingly, Peter Cooper in 1830 [3] designed and built the first American steam engine Tom Thumb [4] in order to convince the owners of the newly built Baltimore and Ohio Railroad to use a steam engine as a thrust.
See also
- Zahos, Ioannis
Notes
- ↑ Peter Cooper
- ↑ Sarah Bedell Cooper
- ↑ In 1830, the first American steam engine designed by Peter Cooper (Inaccessible link) was tested in the United States . Date of treatment March 16, 2016. Archived March 21, 2016.
- ↑ Stover, John F. History of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. - West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press, 1987. - P. 35–36. - ISBN 0-911198-81-4 .
Literature
- Cooper, Peter // Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary : in 86 volumes (82 volumes and 4 additional). - SPb. , 1890-1907.