Henry D. Cogswell
Encyclopedia
Dentist
A dentist, also known as a 'dental surgeon', is a doctor that specializes in the diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of diseases and conditions of the oral cavity. The dentist's supporting team aides in providing oral health services...
and a crusader in the temperance movement
Temperance movement
A temperance movement is a social movement urging reduced use of alcoholic beverages. Temperance movements may criticize excessive alcohol use, promote complete abstinence , or pressure the government to enact anti-alcohol legislation or complete prohibition of alcohol.-Temperance movement by...
. He and his wife Caroline also founded Cogswell College
Cogswell College
Cogswell Polytechnical College is a private college located in Sunnyvale, California. It holds accreditation through the Western Association of Schools and Colleges...
in San Francisco, California
San Francisco, California
San Francisco , officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.15 million people which includes San Jose and Oakland...
. Another campus
Henry Cogswell College
Henry Cogswell College was an institution of higher learning located in Kirkland and Everett, Washington between 1979 and 2006. The college offered bachelor's and master's degrees in business administration|leadership, computer science, digital arts, electrical engineering, mechanical engineering,...
in Everett, Washington
Everett, Washington
Everett is the county seat of and the largest city in Snohomish County, Washington, United States. Named for Everett Colby, son of founder Charles L. Colby, it lies north of Seattle. The city had a total population of 103,019 at the 2010 census, making it the 6th largest in the state and...
was later dedicated in his honor.
Life
Born in Tolland, ConnecticutTolland, Connecticut
Tolland is a town in Tolland County, Connecticut, United States. The population was 13,146 at the 2000 census.Tolland was named in May, 1715, and incorporated in May, 1722. According to some, the town derives its name from being a toll station on the old road between Boston and New York. ...
, as a youth, he worked in the New England
New England
New England is a region in the northeastern corner of the United States consisting of the six states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut...
cotton mill
Cotton mill
A cotton mill is a factory that houses spinning and weaving machinery. Typically built between 1775 and 1930, mills spun cotton which was an important product during the Industrial Revolution....
s and studied by night. He became a dentist in Providence, Rhode Island
Providence, Rhode Island
Providence is the capital and most populous city of Rhode Island and was one of the first cities established in the United States. Located in Providence County, it is the third largest city in the New England region...
at age 26. When the California Gold Rush
California Gold Rush
The California Gold Rush began on January 24, 1848, when gold was found by James W. Marshall at Sutter's Mill in Coloma, California. The first to hear confirmed information of the gold rush were the people in Oregon, the Sandwich Islands , and Latin America, who were the first to start flocking to...
started, the Cogswells decided to go west. However, they did not do any mining
Mining
Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the earth, from an ore body, vein or seam. The term also includes the removal of soil. Materials recovered by mining include base metals, precious metals, iron, uranium, coal, diamonds, limestone, oil shale, rock...
themselves. Instead, he offered dentistry services to miners and invested in real estate
Real estate
In general use, esp. North American, 'real estate' is taken to mean "Property consisting of land and the buildings on it, along with its natural resources such as crops, minerals, or water; immovable property of this nature; an interest vested in this; an item of real property; buildings or...
and mining stocks, becoming one of San Francisco's first millionaires. A pioneer in his field, Cogswell designed the vacuum method of securing dental plates and was the first in California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
to perform a dental operation using chloroform
Chloroform
Chloroform is an organic compound with formula CHCl3. It is one of the four chloromethanes. The colorless, sweet-smelling, dense liquid is a trihalomethane, and is considered somewhat hazardous...
.
Philanthropy
Cogswell believed that if people had access to cool drinking water they wouldn't consume alcoholic beverageAlcoholic beverage
An alcoholic beverage is a drink containing ethanol, commonly known as alcohol. Alcoholic beverages are divided into three general classes: beers, wines, and spirits. They are legally consumed in most countries, and over 100 countries have laws regulating their production, sale, and consumption...
s. It was his dream to construct one drinking fountain for every 100 saloons across the United States and many were built. These drinking fountains were elaborate structures built of granite that Cogswell designed himself.
Cogswell's fountains can be found in Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
, Tompkins Square Park
Tompkins Square Park
Tompkins Square Park is a 10.5 acre public park in the Alphabet City section of the East Village neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It is square in shape, and is bounded on the north by East 10th Street, on the east by Avenue B, on the south by East 7th Street, and on the...
New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, Pawtucket, Rhode Island
Pawtucket, Rhode Island
Pawtucket is a city in Providence County, Rhode Island, United States. The population was 71,148 at the 2010 census. It is the fourth largest city in the state.-History:...
,and Rockville, Connecticut
Rockville, Connecticut
Rockville is a census-designated place and a village of the town of Vernon in Tolland County, Connecticut, United States. The population was 7,708 at the 2000 census...
.
Other examples were erected and then torn down at: Buffalo
Buffalo, New York
Buffalo is the second most populous city in the state of New York, after New York City. Located in Western New York on the eastern shores of Lake Erie and at the head of the Niagara River across from Fort Erie, Ontario, Buffalo is the seat of Erie County and the principal city of the...
, Rochester
Rochester, New York
Rochester is a city in Monroe County, New York, south of Lake Ontario in the United States. Known as The World's Image Centre, it was also once known as The Flour City, and more recently as The Flower City...
, Boston Common
Boston Common
Boston Common is a central public park in Boston, Massachusetts. It is sometimes erroneously referred to as the "Boston Commons". Dating from 1634, it is the oldest city park in the United States. The Boston Common consists of of land bounded by Tremont Street, Park Street, Beacon Street,...
, (removed 1900) Fall River, Massachusetts, Pacific Grove, California
Pacific Grove, California
Pacific Grove is a coastal city in Monterey County, California, USA, with a population of 15,041 as of the 2010 census, down from 15,522 as of the 2000 census...
, San Jose, California
San Jose, California
San Jose is the third-largest city in California, the tenth-largest in the U.S., and the county seat of Santa Clara County which is located at the southern end of San Francisco Bay...
, and San Francisco. The concept of providing drinking fountains as alternatives to saloons was later implemented by the Women's Christian Temperance Union.
These grandiose statues were not well-received by the communities where they were placed. The Temperance Fountain has been called "the city's ugliest statue" and spurred city councils across the country to set up fine arts commissions to screen such gifts.
Although the D.C. statue survived mostly unscathed, the San Francisco one was torn down by "a lynch party of self-professed art lovers" including Gelett Burgess
Gelett Burgess
Frank Gelett Burgess was an artist, art critic, poet, author and humorist. An important figure in the San Francisco Bay Area literary renaissance of the 1890s, particularly through his iconoclastic little magazine, The Lark, he is best known as a writer of nonsense verse...
(who was subsequently fired from his job at University of California at Berkeley) and one in Rockville, Connecticut
Rockville, Connecticut
Rockville is a census-designated place and a village of the town of Vernon in Tolland County, Connecticut, United States. The population was 7,708 at the 2000 census...
, was thrown into Shenipsic Lake. In Dubuque, Iowa
Dubuque, Iowa
Dubuque is a city in and the county seat of Dubuque County, Iowa, United States, located along the Mississippi River. In 2010 its population was 57,637, making it the ninth-largest city in the state and the county's population was 93,653....
, a statue of Cogswell that sat in Washington Park
Washington Park, Dubuque
Washington Park is a small public, urban park located in Downtown Dubuque, Iowa, USA. The park encompasses an entire city block, bordered on the north by West 7th Street, on the west by Bluff Street, on the south by West 6th Street, and on the east by Locust Street...
was pulled down by a group of vandals in 1900 and buried under the ground of a planned sidewalk. The next day the sidewalk was poured and the object was entombed. However, when new sidewalks were recently laid, the statue was not found.
Cogswell also designed the statue for his own tomb, a 400-ton granite tower, complete with fountains and statues of Hope, Faith, Charity and Temperance. He is buried in Mountain View Cemetery in Oakland, California
Oakland, California
Oakland is a major West Coast port city on San Francisco Bay in the U.S. state of California. It is the eighth-largest city in the state with a 2010 population of 390,724...
.
The diaries of Cogswell and his wife Caroline cover 37 years (1860–1897) and are an unusually long and consistent record of busy personal and financial life in the western United States. They are kept at the Bancroft Library
Bancroft Library
The Bancroft Library is the primary special collections library of the University of California, Berkeley. It was acquired as a gift/purchase from its founder, Hubert Howe Bancroft, with the proviso that it retain the name Bancroft Library in perpetuity...
at the University of California, Berkeley
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...
.
Gallery
External links
- Cogswell Papers at the Bancroft Library
- Cogswell Family Association
- Frederick C. Moffatt, "The Intemperate Patronage of Henry D. Cogswell", Winterthur Portfolio, Vol. 27, No. 2/3 (Summer - Autumn, 1992), pp. 123-143