Located up the staircase next to the circulation desk, the Cooper Union Archives & Special Collections holds resources created by, for, or about The Cooper Union and the Cooper Union community.
This includes posters for senior shows, faculty shows, and End of Year Shows; yearbooks and student newspapers; the patents of Peter Cooper and letters of art critic Dore Ashton; recordings from Great Hall events featuring speakers such as Gloria Steinem and John Lewis; photos of college and neighborhood life; and so much more - just start searching here: library.cooper.edu/archives.
The Cooper Union Archives & Special Collections is open Monday-Friday, 9am-5pm, and does not require students, faculty, staff, or alumni to make appointments in order to view archival material during these hours. Researchers unaffiliated with Cooper are advised to write archives@cooper.edu with the date and time of your intended visit, so that access can be arranged with building security.
Absolutely! We are happy to work with faculty and adjunct instructors to develop class visits tailored to meet learning objectives. Examples of materials that have been used by classes include the records of the School of Design for Women (art history, women's history); annual reports and student newspapers (institutional history, student life); color slides of student work (art practice, placing ones work in larger conversation); documentation of Great Hall events (history of labor, politics, performance; civic life); and the records of the Electrical Society (invention, history of science). If you would like to use archival material with your class, just reach out to archives@cooper.edu to schedule a session.
The Cable student yearbook, 1979
