Cooper Union Great Hall

By the mid-nineteenth century, Peter Cooper was one the nation's most successful industrialists. Cooper made a fortune after designing and building the country's first steam locomotive, as well as real estate, iron milling, and insurance businesses. Cooper was a proponent of education and in the 1850s, he began to make plans to build a school to educate the city's residents, and he was determined that it would provide a quality, free educaiton.

Construction of the school began in 1853, and in 1858, a full year before the Cooper Union actually opened and accepted students, the Foundation Building was completed. It is the main building on the college's campus and houses the Great Hall. Located in the building's basement, the Great Hall, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, features a stage and 855 seats. At the time of the building's construction, it was one of the tallest in Lower Manhattan, and one that reflected the inquisitive mind of its founder. The eight-story Foundation Building was equipped with a cylindrical shaft between floors which allowed goods to be transported via pulleys, an early harbinger of the elevator.

Aside from its size (unusual at the time) and its modern amenities, the Foundation Building--the Great Hall, in particular--is also historically significant. In 1860, shortly after Cooper Union opened, Abraham Lincoln, who then aspired to the Republican nomination for President, accepted an invitation to give a speech at Henry Ward Beecher's church in Brooklyn. The event was moved to the Great Hall and it was there that Lincoln, still a relative unknown outside of Illinois, effectively made his national debut. His address at Cooper Union is widely believed to have propelled Lincoln to the nomination and eventually the presidency. In subsequent years, numerous other presidents would speak in the Great Hall, including Ulysses Grant, Theodore Roosevelt, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama, to name just a few.

In 1909, the hall hosted the first public meeting of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), which was formed earlier that year. The Cooper Union campus was a fitting location for the organization's first public meeting, given that its founder was a well-known abolitionist who believed the college bearing his name should be open to all races. The Great Hall was also the site of Frederick Douglass's 1863 speech following the Emancipation Proclamation. Cooper himself invited the famed abolitionist to speak shortly after the Proclamation took effect.

Over the years, the Great Hall has hosted a number of acclaimed guests as speakers, including Mark Twain, Susan B. Anthony, and William Lloyd Garrison.

Remembering Frederick Douglass at the Cooper Union in 1863, Cooper. June 18th 2020. Accessed November 10th 2020. https://cooper.edu/about/news/remembering-frederick-douglass-cooper-union-1863.

Cooper Union Address , Abraham Lincoln Online. Accessed November 10th 2020. http://www.abrahamlincolnonline.org/lincoln/speeches/cooper.htm.