COOPER 



1568 



COOPER 



appearing at that time. So he produced 

 Precaution, a commonplace story of English 

 high life, of which Cooper knew nothing. Ad- 

 vised to turn to adventure in his own country, 

 he wrote The Spy in 1821 and published it at 

 his own expense. On its appearance he was at 

 once recognized as a novelist of force. 



In the twenty years that followed he brought 

 out many novels, including those stirring sea 

 tales, The Pilot and The Red Rover; also 

 those books so popular with boys, and even 

 girls, and retained as pleasant memories in the 

 minds of adults, the Deerslayer, The Last of 

 the Mohicans, by many considered the best 

 of the series, The Pathfinder, The Pioneer and 

 The Prairie. 



After seven years spent in Europe, the rug- 

 gedness of his own country compared with the 

 culture of Europe displeased Cooper and he 

 immediately tried to explain to his fellow- 

 countrymen, through newspaper articles, what 

 he thought they should do' and be. This atti- 

 tude, of course, brought him bitter censure and 

 ridicule at home and abroad. Unable to accept 

 criticism, he became involved in lawsuits. But 

 through all these troubles he continued to 

 write until within a year of his death. 



Although some have said that Cooper's In- 

 dians were idealized and his characters not 

 real, and although his style is somewhat care- 

 less, he will nevertheless live in history as one 

 of the greatest American writers, and as the 

 creator of a few characters which are worthy 

 a lasting place among characters of fiction 

 "Harvey Birch" in The Spy; "Natty Bumppo," 

 the backwoodsman; "Long Tom Coffin," and 

 "Uncas," the Indian. Cooper's works have 

 been translated into many languages, and 

 places around Otsego Lake are still pointed out 

 to visitors as spots he invested with literary 

 interest. M.S. 



"Consult Brownell's American Prose Masters; 

 Phillips's James Fenimore Cooper; Lounsbury's 

 Life of Cooper. 



COOPER, PETER (1791-1883), a self-made 

 American inventor, manufacturer and philan- 

 thropist, whose successful career affords a 

 splendid example of what may be accomplished 

 by industry and perseverance. When Peter 

 was a small child the Cooper family removed 

 from New York City, where he was born, to 

 Peekskill. There he lived until he was seven- 

 teen, receiving only a meager schooling, but 

 developing his mechanical genius in every pos- 

 sible way. 



In 1808 he became an apprentice to a coach- 



PETER COOPER 



builder in New York, at a salary of $25 a year 

 and his board. During his four years of service 

 he not only learned the trade but made several 

 useful inventions, including a machine for mor- 

 tising hubs. 

 Later he began 

 the manufacture 

 of a machine for 

 shearing cloth, 

 turned from that 

 to furniture-mak- 

 ing, started a gro- 

 cery business of 

 his own, all the 

 time making 

 money ; at the 

 age of thirty- 

 three he laid the 

 foundation of a 

 great fortune by 

 his purchase of a glue factory. Cooper's inven- 

 tiveness, energy and good sense gave him a 

 practical monopoly of the country's trade in 

 glue and isinglass for half a century. 



In 1830 he was engaged in the manufacture 

 of charcoal iron near Baltimore, and in the 

 same year constructed from his own designs 

 one of the first steam locomotives ever made 

 in the world, the famous Tom Thumb. Soon 

 after this he sold his iron works jn Baltimore 

 and built an iron factory in New York, which 

 he afterwards turned into a rolling mill. In 

 1845 he removed his business to Trenton, N. J., 

 and built there a new rolling mill, then the 

 largest in the United States, in which were 

 manufactured the first rolled-iron beams for 

 buildings. In 1879 the Iron and Steel Institute 

 of Great Britain fittingly acknowledged Peter 

 Cooper's services in developing the American 

 iron trade by awarding him the Bessemer gold 

 medal. 



Cooper believed that the great fortune which 

 he built up should be used, to quote his own 

 words, "for the benefit of his fellow men." It 

 was this ideal which inspired him to lend his 

 influence and give financial support to the 

 movement for the laying of the Atlantic cable, 

 and his liberality has another permanent 

 memorial in the great Cooper Union in New 

 York City (see below). During the financial 

 disturbance following the panic of 1873 he 

 became deeply interested in the Greenback 

 movement, and in 1876 was nominated for the 

 Presidency by the Greenback party. 



Cooper Union, established by Cooper in 1859, 

 is an institution where the working classes of 



