The Cooper Union
The Cooper Union caricature playing cards illustrated by Gerry Gersten, United States, c. 1987
The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art was founded in 1859 by the industrialist Peter Cooper (1791-1883) to improve and elevate the working classes. On February 27, 1860, the school's Great Hall, located in the basement level of the Foundation Building, became the site of a historic address by Abraham Lincoln, and since then, the Great Hall has hosted historic addresses by numerous American Presidents, including Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, and major figures from the political, social, economic, philosophical and literary fields.
This pack, published by U.S. Games Systems, c. 1987, features brilliant drawings on each card of all the famous persons that have spoken at the Great Hall of the Cooper Union. The illustrations were drawn by the political caricaturist Gerry Gersten (1927-2017). See the box►
Above: The Cooper Union caricature playing cards illustrated by Gerry Gersten and published by U.S. Games Systems, c. 1987.
The pack has 52 suited cards + 2 Jokers + 2 additional cards + plus a booklet written by Emily Schifrin containing brief biographies of the speakers featured on the cards.
By Peter Burnett
United Kingdom • Member since July 27, 2022 • Contact
I graduated in Russian and East European Studies from Birmingham University in 1969. It was as an undergraduate in Moscow in 1968 that I stumbled upon my first 3 packs of “unusual” playing cards which fired my curiosity and thence my life-long interest. I began researching and collecting cards in the early 1970s, since when I’ve acquired over 3,330 packs of non-standard cards, mainly from North America, UK and Western Europe, and of course from Russia and the former communist countries.
Following my retirement from the Bodleian Library in Dec. 2007 I took up a new role as Head of Library Development at the International Network for the Availability of Scientific Publications (INASP) to support library development in low-income countries. This work necessitated regular training visits to many sub-Saharan African countries and also further afield, to Vietnam, Nepal and Bangladesh – all of which provided rich opportunities to further expand my playing card collection.
Since 2019 I’ve been working part-time in the Bodleian Library where I’ve been cataloguing the bequest of the late Donald Welsh, founder of the English Playing Card Society.
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