Peter Cooper. Wow, what a cool dude.  After reading travisekmark’s post, I looked him up on wikipedia and learned all kinds of interesting facts about his life.  He was an important inventor and innovator back in the 1800s.  Perhaps you’ve seen his name on some stuff in NYC, like Cooper Union.  Cooper Union is not only a fabulous art and architecture school, but it is also free to all students accepted.  Cooper, influenced by the free polytechnical institute in Paris, wanted to use his wealth to sponsor a similarly free school in the US.  An early socialist! (Be still my heart!) His politics were even more interesting.  He became involved in the Indian reform movement, organizing the privately funded United States Indian Commission, dedicated to the protection and elevation of Native Americans in the United States and the elimination of warfare in the western territories. He was an ardent critic of the gold standard and the debt-based monetary system of bank currency. Throughout the depression from 1873-78, he said that usury was the foremost political problem of the day. He strongly advocated a credit-based, Government-issued currency of United States Notes.  In today’s terms, i think that means that he would be anti-credit cards, anti-stock market, and pro-US Bonds, which i approve of. And he invented Jell-O. I will don’t think I will ever be as cool as this guy, or touch as many lives, but I think I may have found my new role model. travisekmark:rickyv: Peter Cooper built the first train, installed the first telegraph cable across an ocean, ran for President, founded and endowed a free world class university, brought peace between Native Americans and western states, and invented Jell-O.

Peter Cooper.

Wow, what a cool dude.  After reading travisekmark’s post, I looked him up on wikipedia and learned all kinds of interesting facts about his life.  He was an important inventor and innovator back in the 1800s.  Perhaps you’ve seen his name on some stuff in NYC, like Cooper Union.  Cooper Union is not only a fabulous art and architecture school, but it is also free to all students accepted.  Cooper, influenced by the free polytechnical institute in Paris, wanted to use his wealth to sponsor a similarly free school in the US.  An early socialist! (Be still my heart!)

His politics were even more interesting.  He became involved in the Indian reform movement, organizing the privately funded United States Indian Commission, dedicated to the protection and elevation of Native Americans in the United States and the elimination of warfare in the western territories.

He was an ardent critic of the gold standard and the debt-based monetary system of bank currency. Throughout the depression from 1873-78, he said that usury was the foremost political problem of the day. He strongly advocated a credit-based, Government-issued currency of United States Notes.  In today’s terms, i think that means that he would be anti-credit cards, anti-stock market, and pro-US Bonds, which i approve of.

And he invented Jell-O.

I will don’t think I will ever be as cool as this guy, or touch as many lives, but I think I may have found my new role model.

travisekmark:rickyv:

Peter Cooper built the first train, installed the first telegraph cable across an ocean, ran for President, founded and endowed a free world class university, brought peace between Native Americans and western states, and invented Jell-O.