The New International Encyclopædia/Cogswell, Joseph Green

COGS′WELL, Joseph Green (1786-1871). An American librarian and bibliographer. He was born in Ipswich, Mass., graduated at Harvard in 1806, and studied law, but preferred to teach, and became a tutor at Harvard in 1814. With George Ticknor he spent two years (1816-18) at the University of Göttingen, where he paid special attention to the methods and principles of instruction. In 1820 he was made professor of mineralogy and geology and librarian of Harvard College, and in 1823, with George Bancroft, founded the Round Hill School at Northampton, Mass. He removed to New York, to become editor of the Review in that city, in 1836; continued in that work until 1842; became a personal friend of John Jacob Astor, and was appointed one of the trustees of the fund to create the Astor Library. He was, besides, the chief adviser of the philanthropist in planning this library. He became superintendent in 1848, and went abroad to purchase volumes for the collection. His general bibliographical knowledge was of great service to the library, one great work undertaken by him being the preparation of an analytical and alphabetical catalogue of the collection. He contributed valuable papers to periodicals, and numerous specimens to the botanical and mineralogical collections at Harvard. Consult Ticknor (editor), Life of Joseph Green Cogswell, as Sketched in His Letters (Cambridge, Mass., 1874).