Lillian Cooper papers

Lillian Cooper was born on December 11, 1907 at the Jewish Hospital on Classon and St. Marks Avenues in Brooklyn, New York. Her parents, Ben Cooper and Celia Cooper (née Belzman), had recently immigrated from the Pale of Settlement (listed as Russia in censuses) and Lillian was their first child. Ben Cooper's occupation listed on Lillian's birth certificate was bookbinder.

The family moved several times in Brooklyn. At the time of Lillian's birth, the Coopers were living at 17 Barrett Street in Brownsville. Then they moved to an address on Lorimer Street. Ben and Celia Cooper had two more children: Gertrude (1910-1972) and George (1912-1963). In 1918, they were living at 609 Gates Avenue. In 1930, Lillian Cooper was still living with her parents at 570 Gates Avenue in Bedford-Stuyvesant. The Coopers finally settled in Brighton Beach at 3130 Brighton 6th Street.

Cooper graduated from Eastern District High School in 1925. She received a New York State scholarship to complete her BA degree at Hunter College, graduating in 1930. She also completed some graduate coursework at Columbia University in the late 1930s/early 1940s. Cooper was certified as an elementary school teacher. She got a job at Greenup High School in Greenup, Kentucky where she lived and worked until 1933 when she then moved to work temporary jobs in Philadelphia and Arkansas.

In the mid-1930s, Cooper met Herman Kobbé, an architect and candidate for New York Lieutenant Governor on the 1934 Socialist Party ticket. Cooper worked as a social investigator in the Department of Welfare for the City of New York from 1935 to 1942.

Kobbé and Cooper lived together in an apartment at 209 Washington Park in Brooklyn. Lillian Cooper and Herman Kobbé traveled to Mexico together and lived there for a time. In 1943, they bought a farm, nicknamed Chinaberry House, in Leesville, South Carolina.

In the late 1940s, Cooper and Kobbé worked together on the Holly Point Project, a plan for a children's development center on their land around Lake Murray, South Carolina. The plan included a boarding school, programs for parents, and vacation opportunities for city children. Kobbé was the director and Cooper worked as research assistant. Cooper and Kobbé's relationship ended around 1948.

In the mid-1950s, Cooper worked in the College of Engineering at the University of Florida, Gainesville. When she moved back to New York, Cooper continued teaching in New York City public schools and took courses in writing at New York University and the Herzl Institute. She submitted fiction pieces and poems to publications, often using the pen name Joan Kinner. She also took on freelance, research, editing, and writing projects.

Lillian Cooper died on September 19, 1995 in New Jersey.