The American colonel who brought General Electric turbines and dam-building expertise to the Soviet Union's showcase construction site
At the 1932 Dneprostroi dedication: "The practical experience of American methods thus acquired will be a lever in raising the living standards of this country."
A self-taught dam engineer, Hugh Lincoln Cooper made his name by taming the Horseshoe Rapids at Niagara (1907) and spanning the Mississippi at Keokuk (1913), rising to become America's foremost hydroelectric builder. In 1926 the Soviet government invited him as chief consultant for Dneprostroi; he supplied General Electric turbines, supervised every phase of construction, and delivered Europe's largest power station eight months ahead of schedule in 1932. That September the USSR awarded Cooper and five other American engineers the Order of the Red Banner of Labour, the first time the decoration went to a foreigner. He remained an anti-communist all his life, but without his dam there would have been no flagship achievement for the First Five-Year Plan.
Activities and affiliations
- 1927–1932 Science and technology · Soviet Union
Career Timeline
- 1907Completed Toronto Power Generating Station, Horseshoe Rapids, Niagara
- 1913Completed Keokuk Dam and power plant, Mississippi River
- 1914Consultant, Aswan Dam power conversion (interrupted by WWI)
- 1917–1918Supervising engineer, US Army Corps of Engineers; colonel
- 1919Completed Lake Zumbro Hydroelectric Plant, Minnesota
- 1924Completed Wilson Dam, Alabama (later part of TVA)
- 1927–1932Chief consultant, Dneprostroi (DneproGES), USSR
- 1932Awarded Order of the Red Banner of Labour (first foreign recipient)
Related historical events
Back in America: Soviet trade advocacy and the 1931 hearings
Returning to the United States in 1930, Cooper succeeded Reeve Schley as president of the American-Russian Chamber of Commerce. Interest in the Soviet leadership's attention to him traveled with him: senior politicians and leading businessmen wanted his impressions. In his first speeches Cooper denied rumors of communist sympathies, stressing that he was neither a communist nor a supporter of the Communist Party and that Third International propaganda in America should be stopped. He then argued for expanding business with the USSR, saying the country's vast natural-resource potential remained unrealized and that its shortage of resources made it one of the most promising markets. Debt and compensation questions, in his view, could be settled by agreement, which would resolve the problem of non-recognition of the USSR. At the same time, during the Dneprostroi construction he pointed to insufficient mechanization, low labor productivity and an overgrown administrative apparatus. On diplomatic recognition of the USSR he was often hesitant, and a U.S. State Department profile described him as a tough-minded, hardheaded veteran engineer with firm anti-communist convictions, seeking to make money and achieve professional success. At U.S. congressional hearings in 1931 Cooper flatly denied that his organization was financed by Amtorg or foreign governments, or that it engaged in propaganda or other political activity. In 1932 he became the first foreign citizen awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labour.