Susan Augusta Fenimore Cooper (April 17, 1813 – December 31, 1894) was an American writer and amateur naturalist. She founded an orphanage in Cooperstown, New York and made it a successful charity. The daughter of writer James Fenimore Cooper, she served as his secretary and amanuensis late in his life.
Early life, education and charity work
Susan Fenimore Cooper was born in 1813 in Scarsdale, New York, the daughter of the novelist James Fenimore Cooper and his wife Susan Augusta DeLancey. She was his second child, and the eldest to survive her youth. As a child, Cooper studied in European schools when she traveled with her family to live there. She sometimes travelled with her father and assisted in documenting and organizing his notes. Much of her life was devoted to him, and he encouraged her practice of art and writing. She also published a great deal herself.
In 1868, Cooper was one of the founding members of Thanksgiving Hospital.
In 1873, she founded an orphanage in Cooperstown, New York, the town founded by her paternal grandfather William Cooper and where she and her family had lived most of her adult life. Under her superintendence the orphanage became a prosperous charitable institution. It was begun in a modest house in a small way with five pupils; in 1900 the building, which was erected in 1883, sheltered ninety boys and girls. The orphans were taken when quite young, were fed, clothed, and given a basic education. When they were old enough, they were helped to find positions in "good Christian families". Some of them before leaving were taught to earn their own living.
