Cooper, Peter. Noted American inventor, manufacturer, and philanthropist. Born in New York, 1791. He erected iron works in Baltimore in 1828, and soon after constructed from his own designs the first locomotive engine built in America. He was actively interested in state canals, and later in the first ocean telegraph. His great life work, however, was the establishment of Cooper Union, founded in 1854, containing free day and evening schools in science, art, mathematics, and engineering, open to both sexes. He died in 1883. Elected to American Hall of Fame, 1900.

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