Peter Cooper ( February 12, 1791 – April 4, 1883 ) was an American industrialist, inventor and philanthropist.
He was born in New York City, the son of Dutch descendents. He had little formal schooling and worked in the family trade of hatmaking. He then worked as a coachmaker's apprentice, cabinet maker, grocer and was involved in the manufacturing and selling of cloth-shearing machines.
In about 1828 he started a successful glue and isinglass factory, before building the Canton iron works near Baltimore in 1830. There he manufactured the first steam powered railroad locomotive engine made in America, which was called Tom Thumb. The engine ran successfully on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad.
He then erected a rolling mill and an iron mill in New York City, where he was the first to successfully use anthracite coal to puddle iron. In 1845, he moved his machinery to Trenton, New Jersey where he built the largest rolling-mill in the United States for producing railroad iron. There, in 1854 he oversaw the production of the first structural wrought iron beams.
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 the Polytechnic Institute 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 presened the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art to the City of New York.
In 1854, Cooper was one of five men to form the New York, Newfoundland and London Telegraph Company, and he supervised the laying of the first cable.
He patented instant gelatine, which later became known by the brand name Jello.
He ran in the 1876 presidential election for the Greenback Party.
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