ABSTRACT
Peter Cooper, founder of New York’s Cooper Union, was of the same generation as Timothy Claxton and Josiah Holbrook whose efforts on behalf of mechanics’ institutes and the American Lyceum. Born in New York City in 1791, Peter was the fifth child of John and Margaret Cooper. As Benjamin Franklin and thousands of other young men in early America, Cooper’s introduction to the world of commerce was at the side of his father. At seventeen he returned to New York as an apprentice to a coachmaker. During his apprenticeship as a coachmaker, Cooper began to display adult forms of the creativity and mechanical skill displayed at an earlier age. The coachmaker for whom Cooper worked realized how valuable the young man could be in his business and made him an unusual offer. In 1821, at about age thirty, Peter Cooper entered what he described as the second period of his life.
