Peter Cooper establishes the Cooper Union in New York City on April 13, 1859, as a college devoted to free adult-education in art, science and technology.
Originally intended to be called simply "the Union," the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art begins with adult education in night classes on the subjects of applied sciences and architectural drawing, as well as day classes for women on the subjects of photography, telegraphy, typewriting and shorthand (in what is called the College's Female School of Design).
Discrimination based on race, religion, or sex is expressly prohibited.
Early board members include New York Tribune editor Horace Greeley and American romantic poet, journalist, political adviser, and homeopath William Cullen Bryant.
Cooper, a workingman's son who had had less than a year of formal schooling, is a principal investor and first president of the New York, Newfoundland & London Telegraph Co., which undertakes one of the nineteenth century's monumental technical enterprises—laying the first Atlantic cable.
Cooper has also invented instant gelatin, derived from the bones of geese, with help from his wife, Sarah, who adds fruit to what the world will come to know as Jello.
