Peter
Cooper, the son of a hat maker, was born in New
York on
12th February 1791. He received little schooling and as a child worked
with his father before being apprenticed as a coach-builder in 1808.
Cooper
moved to Long Island in 1812 and three years later he set up a business
making machines for shearing cloth. Later he began to make furniture.
In
1828 Cooper built the Canton Iron Works in Baltimore. Soon afterwards
he began work on the first steam locomotive built in America. Given
the name Tom Thumb, it was completed in 1830. His business flourished
and influenced by the ideas of Henry Bessemer,
built the largest blast furnace in America in Philippsburg, New Jersey.
He also established successful foundries at Ringwood and Durham.
Cooper
became involved in laying the first Atlantic cable, and was president
of the New York, Newfoundland & London Telegraph Company and the
North American Telegraph Company.
A
supporter of Abraham Lincoln and an opponent
of slavery, Cooper was a strong advocate
of enlisting black soldiers in the
Union
Army during
the American Civil War.
In
1875 Cooper established the Greenback
Party. Its
main support came from farmers who were suffering
from declining
farm prices, high railroad rates and the government's deflationary
currency policies. Cooper
was the party's presidential candidate in 1876 but he won only 81,737
votes and was easily beaten by Rutherford
Hayes (4,036,298)
and Samuel
Tilden (4,300,590).
However, the party did send 15 representatives to Congress.
In 1878 members
of the Greenback Party joined with urban trade union groups to establish
the Greenback-Labor
Party.
James
Weaver
emerged as leader of the party and was its presidential candidate
in 1880. During
the campaign Weaver argued that the two major political parties had
lost sight of their original democratic ideals of equal opportunity.
He also claimed that the maintenance of the gold standard benefited
banking interests but was driving farmers out of business. Weaver
called for policies where all classes could share in the economic
wealth of America.
Peter
Cooper, who received the Bessemer gold medal from the Iron and Steel
Institute of Great Britain in 1879,
died in New York on 4th April 1883.
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