Cooper, Hewitt & Co. letterpress copybooks
Call Number
Date
Creator
Extent
Language of Materials
Abstract
The collection includes 296 letter books containing letterpress copies of outgoing correspondence, primarily concerning the business matters of Cooper, Hewitt & Co. (1848-1905), the firm of Edward Cooper (1824-1905) and Abram Hewitt (1822-1903). The correspondence relates to Cooper and Hewitt's activities as agents for the Trenton Iron Co. (New Jersey), managing all purchases of ore, coal, and other raw materials, all sales of finished iron, supplies of credit for current operations, daily instructions for operation, maintenance of accounts, sales of railroad rails, blooms, billets, pig iron, flats, rounds, wire for fence and bridges, iron ore, coal, administration problems, their agency for Welsh and European mill output, publicity, developments in equipment and processes, materials for gun barrels during the Civil War, development of the iron and steel industry, etc. Some letters, mostly from the 1870s and later, concern political, philanthropic, and matters other than business.
Biographical/Historical Note
Edward Cooper (1824-1905) met Abram Stevens Hewitt (1822-1903) at Columbia College. They became friends, graduating in 1842 and traveling together. They went into business as partners, with the financial backing of Edward's father, Peter Cooper (1791-1883). Peter Cooper had no formal education, but had learned various trades and had a knack for invention. Working his way through trades and operating a grocery store, Peter eventually bought a glue factory in New York City in 1821. His success with this business, as well as with his invention of related gelatin products, including what is known today as Jell-O, made him an increasingly wealthy man by the mid-19th century.
By the 1830s, Peter Cooper turned his attention to iron, purchasing a mining operation (the Ringwood Company) and property in northern New Jersey. He opened an ironworks in Trenton in 1845. It was this business that Peter's son, Edward, and future son-in-law, Abram Hewitt, took over the management of. Edward Cooper and Hewitt eventually formalized their partnership as Cooper, Hewitt & Co. They expanded the iron business to encompass an iron ore mine at Andover, NJ, and blast furnaces at Philipsburg, NJ.
In 1855, Abram Hewitt married Edward's sister, Sarah Amelia Cooper (1830-1912). In 1856, Hewitt visited the business's Ringwood operation, coming away impressed with both the mining resources and the beauty of the area. He returned with Sarah to the location and they adopted the house, known then and now as Ringwood Manor, as their summer home. They continued to live at other times on Lexington Avenue in New York City in Peter Cooper's household.
In addition to the thriving iron business, by the 1870s Hewitt became active in politics. A Democrat, he was first elected to Congress in 1874. He was re-elected in 1876, lost in 1878, and re-elected in 1880, 1882, and 1884. Then leaving Congress, he was elected mayor of New York in 1886. He was defeated in 1888, ending his political career.
The Coopers and Hewitt were known for their philanthropy, especially concerning education. Peter Cooper, appreciating the value of a formal education he never had, founded Cooper Union in 1859 and remained its president until 1882. At that time, Edward Cooper became Cooper Union's second president, remaining in the position until 1804, just before his death.
Abram Hewitt died in 1903. His 50% ownership share of the Trenton Iron Company passed into the hands of his children. Edward Cooper then sold his 50% stake to his sister, Hewitt's widow. In 1904, the Hewitt family sold the works to the United States Steel Corporation. (See Vol. 271, pg. 516, for Cooper's reference to this transaction.) Edward Cooper died in 1905. The Ringwood Company changed in the 1920s from a mining operation into a land company, developing the municipality of Ringwood in New Jersey.
Abram and Sarah Hewitt had six children, the youngest being Erskine Hewitt (1871-1938), from whose estate came the letterpress copybooks in this collection. Sending them to N-YHS from Hewitt's estate was his nephew, Norvin Green (1893-1955), Abram Hewitt's grandson by his eldest child, Amelia Hewitt Green (1856-1922).
(The above note was based largely on information from the website of Ringwood Manor: www.ringwoodmanor.org.)
Arrangement Note
The collection is arranged in volume number order. The volumes proceed in chronological order.
The earliest volumes, labeled C & H, are numbered 2 to 27 (volumes 1 and 19 are missing). After volume 27, the labeling changes to C.H. & Co. and the numbering starts over with 1, proceeding to the end (volume 271). This second set is missing volumes 5, 122, 236, 237, and 241.
Scope and Contents Note
The collection includes 296 letter books containing letterpress copies of outgoing correspondence, primarily concerning the business matters of Cooper, Hewitt & Co. (1848-1905), the firm of Edward Cooper and Abram Hewitt. Some letters, a small amount in relation to the whole, concern political, philanthropic, and matters other than business; these seem to date mostly from the 1870s and later. The business correspondence relates to Cooper and Hewitt's activities as agents for the Trenton Iron Co., managing all purchases of ore, coal, and other raw materials, all sales of finished iron, supplies of credit for current operations, daily instructions for operation, maintenance of accounts, sales of railroad rails, blooms, billets, pig iron, flats, rounds, wire for fence and bridges, iron ore, coal, administration problems, their agency for Welsh and European mill output, publicity, developments in equipment and processes, materials for gun barrels during the Civil War, development of the iron and steel industry, etc.
Each of the volumes holds about 1000 sheets and most of the volumes are full. The copies can be difficult to read because of faded or blurred ink. Typed copies begin to appear in the volumes around the 1880s, and these appear to relate mostly to the non-business matters. Some of the volumes, especially the earlier ones, are somewhat deteriorated. Each of the volumes includes an index to the correspondents in the book, noting the page numbers on which that correspondent appears. Frequent correspondents include the Trenton Iron Co., New Jersey Steel & Iron Co., Pequest Iron Works (Oxford, NJ), Architectural Iron Works (14th Street in New York City), and Durham Iron Works (Riegelsville, Penn). Various corporate customers appear including railroads (e.g., Hudson River Rail Road, Morris & Essex Railroad, and New York & Harlem Railroad) and arms (e.g., Remington & Sons, Rock Island Arsenal). During the Civil War period, Alexander Brydue Dyer of the Springfield Armory (Massachusetts) appears frequently. Other notable names also appear in the indexes, including the Morris Canal Co., Jay Gould, Joseph Wharton, and the Roeblings. Researchers should be aware that only a few indexes were skimmed during processing so the above names give only a sense of the entire range of correspondents.
Only seven scattered volumes appear to be missing, so the volumes represent almost the entire history of the Edward Cooper-Abram Hewitt partnership. With Hewitt's death in 1903, the number of entries fell off, with only about 100 pages filled by Cooper and others before the final entry in 1905.
Edward Cooper and Abram Hewitt were connected directly or indirectly to Cooper Union (Edward suceeded his father as president) and the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum (Abram's daughters founded it in 1895). It seems unlikely that these copybooks include any letters of substance related to those institutions, but the possibility cannot be definitively dismissed because so little of the content has been reviewed.
Subjects
Organizations
People
Topics
Access Restrictions
Open to qualified researchers. The volumes are stored offsite so researchers need to request them one week in advance of their intended visit.
Use Restrictions
Photocopying undertaken by staff only. Limited to twenty exposures of stable, unbound material per day. (Researchers may not accrue unused copy amounts from previous days.)
Preferred Citation Note
This collection should be cited as Cooper, Hewitt & Co. letterpress copybooks, MS 1130, The New-York Historical Society.
Location of Materials
Immediate Source of Acquisition Note
The collection was a gift from the estate of Erskine Hewitt, via Norvin H. Green. 277 of the books were acquired on 22 November 1938 and the remaining fourteen on 29 December 1939.
About this Guide
Processing Information Note
The collection was cataloged with a summary description in 2000. In 2018, volunteer Alison Barr inventoried all the volumes and archivist Larry Weimer expanded somewhat on the catalog description to prepare a finding aid to enhance discovery and facilitate requests from offsite storage. Given the fragility of the volumes, conservator Alan Balicki shrink wrapped them.
Repository
View Inventory
Cooper & Hewitt Volumes
Volume 2, 1848 October-1849 October
Volume 3, 1849 October-1850 April
Volume 4, 1850 May-October
Volume 5, 1850 October-1851 May
Volume 6, 1851 May-September
Volume 7, 1851 September-1852 January
Volume 8, 1852 January-June
Volume 9, 1852 June-October
Volume 10, 1852 October-1853 February
Volume 11, 1853 March-July
Volume 12, 1853 July-October
Volume 13, 1853 October-1854 February
Volume 14, 1854 February-June
Volume 15, 1854 June-September
Volume 16, 1854 September-December
Volume 17, 1854 December-1855 March
Volume 18, 1855 March-May
Volume 20, 1855 August-October
Volume 21, 1855 October-December
Volume 22, 1855 December-1856 March
Volume 23, 1856 March-May
Volume 24, 1856 May-August
Volume 25, 1856 August-October
Volume 26, 1856 October-November
Volume 27, 1856 November-1857 January
Scope and Contents
Blank at page 49 on.