Peter Buckley

Professor Emeritus of History

Peter Buckley was educated as Sussex University in England and S.U.N.Y. Stony Brook. Before arriving at The Cooper Union he taught history at Princeton University and Pratt Institute. He is interested in forms of urban commercial culture and has written on New York City's culture and politics in the first half of the 19th century and part of The Cambridge History of the American Theatre. He has become the unofficial historian of The Cooper Union and is at work on a book which surveys the history of education here. He also is a Fellow of the New York Institute for the Humanities at N.Y.U.

Related News

  • Founded by inventor, industrialist and philanthropist Peter Cooper in 1859, The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art offers education in art, architecture and engineering, as well as courses in the humanities and social sciences.

  • “My feelings, my desires, my hopes, embrace humanity throughout the world,” Peter Cooper proclaimed in a speech in 1853. He looked forward to a time when, “knowledge shall cover the earth as waters cover the great deep.”

  • From its beginnings, Cooper Union was a unique institution, dedicated to founder Peter Cooper's proposition that education is the key not only to personal prosperity but to civic virtue and harmony.

  • Peter Cooper wanted his graduates to acquire the technical mastery and entrepreneurial skills, enrich their intellects and spark their creativity, and develop a sense of social justice that would translate into action.