Hugh MacDougall is Founder and Secretary/Treasurer of the James Fenimore Cooper Society. He is a retired United States Foreign Service Officer who, after graduating from Harvard College and Columbia University's Schools of Law and International Affairs, spent 28 years with the State Department, mostly as a political reporting officer from third world countries.

Since about 1980 he has been an avid student of the life and works of James Fenimore Cooper, America's first international recognized novelist.

Mr. MacDougall is the author of "Cooper's Otsego County" (Cooperstown: New York State Historical Association, 1989), a literary guide to places associated with or described by James Fenimore Cooper in Otsego County, New York, as well as numerous academic papers and informal talks about the author. He has also given a number of Elderhostel courses on Cooper.

Since 1989 he has directed the James Fenimore Cooper Society (founded that year on the bicentennial of the author's birth), and edits and publishes its Newsletter and Miscellaneous Papers Series. For a decade he has organized the Cooper Panel at the annual Conference of the American Literature Association.

He is also a regular staff member of the biennial Cooper Seminar hosted by the State University of New York College at Oneonta, and since 1995 has edited the Conference papers for publication. In 2000 he launched a James Fenimore Cooper Society website, hosted by the college, for which he is webmaster, and which already provides over 250 texts, papers, and reference materials on Cooper (and his naturalist/writer daughter Susan Fenimore Cooper), has attracted over 20,000 visitors in the past eight months, and was rated by the Scout Report for Social Sciences at the University of Wisconsin as "one of the most comprehensive single-author websites we've seen." Through the website's e-mail service, "Ask Fenimore," he responds to hundreds of inquiries from scholars, students, and readers about Cooper's life and works, as well as about Cooper's genealogy and editions of his works.

Since retiring from the Foreign Service in 1986, Mr. MacDougall and his wife have lived on the shore of Lake Otsego (Cooper's "Glimmerglass")in their home town of Cooperstown, New York, the village where James Fenimore Cooper spent over half his life and writing career.

Meeting Transcript

Club Leader: Thank you for joining today"s chat on James Fenimore Cooper. Please welcome Hugh MacDougall from the James Fenimore Cooper Society.

Hugh MacDougall: Hello, we're looking forward to an interesting hour of talk about Cooper.

Club Leader: What inspired you to found the James Fenimore Cooper society? What does the society do?

Hugh MacDougall: I founded the Society in 1989, to promote the reading and study of the life and works of Cooper; we publish documents, have a big website, and participate in conferences.

Club Leader: Let's start the discussion by examining the life of James Fenimore Cooper. Can you tell us about his childhood?

Hugh MacDougall: Cooper was born in Burlington, New Jersey, and brought as a baby, in 1790, to the frontier village of Cooperstown founded by his father in 1786. He spent his childhood here, went to school for a couple of years in Albany, and then spent 3 years at Yale College.

Club Leader: Did he show great writing ability in his youth?

Hugh MacDougall: Not really. His wife once said he didn't even like to write letters. But he read a great deal and enjoyed novels. It was not until 1820, when he was about 31, that he first tried his hand at writing a book.

Club Leader: What did he do before he was 31?

Hugh MacDougall: He got thrown out of Yale, after a fight, at the age of 16. He ran away to sea, spent a year on a merchant ship going to Europe, and then became a Midshipman (a lower grade officer) in the new United States Navy. After a couple of years there, he resigned, got married, and settled in Westchester County outside New York.

Club Leader: why did he settle in NY?

Hugh MacDougall: Cooper's wife was from an old family in Westchester County, outside New York City. After a couple of years, about 1822, the family moved into New York City.

Club Leader: What was his first book and how long did it take for him to write it? How did he get this book published?

Hugh MacDougall: In between his marriage in 1811 and his return to New York he had also spent some 5 years in Cooperstown farming -- on the site of the location where the C-SPAN program has been filmed. His first book was Precaution, published in 1820, and he wrote it over a few months. He didn't know much about publishing, but he found a printer who would produce it.

Club Leader: Let's take a questions from a book club member. ejoffe in MIami, FL asks: Which of Copper's books is the best literature?

Hugh MacDougall: Good Question. My favorite is The Pioneers, written in 1823 and set here in Cooperstown when it was a frontier village. But he wrote 32 novels and about a dozen other books.

Club Leader: Why is that book your favorite? When did you first read Cooper?

Hugh MacDougall: Perhaps because it gives such a good and complex picture of a frontier village. I had read a little of coopers as a child, but only began to study him seriously about 1980

Margaret Loeffler of Naples, FL asks: I remember falling in love with The Leatherstocking Tales at about 11 or 12 years of age. Would this be a book a librarian would recommend for that age?

Hugh MacDougall: Certainly children have enjoyed Cooper's novels, especially the five Leatherstocking Tales, for hundreds of years -- but he never thought of himself as a writer for children.

Club Leader: Can you tell us a little about that work?

Hugh MacDougall: The five Leatherstocking Tales all have as a central character Natty Bumppo (Hawkeye, Deerslayer, etc.) the frontier scout who presents a picture of an uneducated man of great courage and morality, who has exciting adventures

Club Leader: Do you know what inspired Cooper to write about this genre and characters?

Hugh MacDougall: Natty Bumppo and his Indian friend Chingachgook became the model for the American Western hero -- think of the Lone Ranger and Tonto. Cooper wanted to write books about his own country and its history -- not about the European settings which were all most American readers knew in literature.

Club Leader: Was there an audience for that?

Hugh MacDougall: To Cooper's surprise, there was. Starting with The Spy (1821) about the American Revolution, Cooper's early books were among the biggest Best Sellers American had ever known.

Johnb of Kansas City asks: What do you think is Cooper's contribution to American Literature?

Hugh MacDougall: Certainly he is best remembered for the almost mythic character of Natty Bumppo, but also as the first American writer to describe Native Americans with knowledge and sympathy, and to plead for the preservation of the environment.

charlene Pierson of Peoria, IL asks: Please tell us the content of the personal letters to JFCooper displayed in the Fenimore Art Museum, from Sir Walter Scott, Lafayette, etc.

Hugh MacDougall: You can find the texts on the Cooper Society website, in a publication called The Cooper Screens.

Club Leader: What is the URL address?

Hugh MacDougall: http://www.oneonta.edu/~cooper/

Club Leader: Can you tell us what the letters are about?

Hugh MacDougall: As I recall there is a social letter from Sir Walter Scott, whom Cooper had gotten to know in France in the 1820s; there are half a dozen letters from Lafayette on the screen -- Cooper became a close friend of his in Paris. There is Cooper's first letter, at the age of 11, to his father (who was a Congressman in Philadelphia)

Club Leader: Did Cooper have any interest in politics? Or did he express that in his fictional writings?

Hugh MacDougall: He never took any direct part in politics. He was brought up as a Federalist, but became a Democrat -- supposedly after seeing the portrait of Jefferson by Sully at West Point.

However, he had strong views on all kinds of political, social, and cultural questions, and he used his fiction to express them -- as well as writing letters to the press.

mrcharles (Greer, SC) asks: How were the novels perceived at the time they where written. Were they accepted as historical accurate?

Hugh MacDougall: His novels about the frontier were welcomed as a picture of the American experience. His descriptions of Native Americans were controversial -- some Americans who hated Indians objected strongly to Cooper's portraying them sympathetically. He was also criticized for describing African-Americans too sympathetically.

Club Leader: Did readers embrace or challenge his depiction of Indians?

Hugh MacDougall: Reactions to Cooper's Indians have varied widely. Writers like Mark Twain who despised Native Americans objected strongly, as did Louis Cass. Others were glad to see Indians for the first time treated with sympathy.

Club Leader: Had Cooper spent time with Indians?

Hugh MacDougall: Towards the end of Cooper's life, an Ojibwa Indian, George Copway, praised Cooper as the man who had done more for Native Americans than any other writer. Cooper tried to visit with Indian delegations coming to Albany or Washington whenever he could.

hcooper in New York, NY asks: Why was James Fenimore Cooper kicked out of Yale?

Hugh MacDougall: He got into a fist fight with another student; both were expelled. Cooper's family later won a civil law suit against the other student.

James O'Sullivan Albany, NY asks: Was Cooper ever a resident of Albany, NY and was he a partnering a law firm that bears his name there?

Hugh MacDougall: You are probably thinking of the author's grandson, also named James Fenimore Cooper (1858-1938) who was a lawyer in Albany.

Club Leader: How many children did he have? Are any of his descendent writers?

Hugh MacDougall: Cooper had four daughters and a son who grew to adulthood (2 others died as children). Generally speaking there seems to be at least one writer in each generation of his descendants.

Club Leader: What have they published?

Hugh MacDougall: His grandson published local history of Cooperstown; a great grandson published children's books and a book on Arctic exploration. A great-great grandson writes regularly about the space program.

Howard Klinker of Kalamazoo, MI asks: Why not broaden your discussion to include the 32 novels Cooper wrote? The Spy, Pilot, Red Rover, Two Admirals all were exciting. The Sea Lions ought to be used for a movie script. The Crater is quite unusual. The Chainbearer and Oak Openings were more localized. Mercedes of Castile and the Headsman were quite different. Give credit for more than the Leather Stocking Tales.

Club Leader: Any comment?

Hugh MacDougall: I quite agree -- many of Cooper's novels that are often forgotten are as good as the five that are remembered. Cooper invented the Sea Novel, as both Melville and Conrad were glad to admit. One of my favorites is The Bravo, set in 18th century Venice -- which is a story of bureaucratic tyranny written 200 years before 1984. It has even been made into two Italian Grand Operas.

hcooper in New York, NY asks: Did Cooper's writing help form American's notions of nature, conservation, and the environment?

Hugh MacDougall: Very much so. Especially in The Pioneers and in The Prairie, Cooper set forth the basic principles that the environmental movement has been built on. 1) conservation of scarce natural resources 2) preservation and valuing of the natural landscape and of wild animals; 3) the danger that man, by his "wasty ways" can turn his land into a desert.

Club Leader: What do you think Cooper would think of environmentalism in the year 2001?

Hugh MacDougall: I think he would be very sympathetic to the efforts being made to conserve and protect the wilderness he loved, and the ability of man to live within his environment and not destroy it.

carol brier of somers, NY asks: As a volunteer at the John Jay Homestead State Historic Site, Katonah, NY, what information do you have relative to Mr. Cooper's visits to John Jay at his farm in Bedford and his discussions of his espionage ring in Westchester County during the revolutionary war and Mr. Cooper's knowledge of his meetings with Mr. Jay at his home in Bedford.

Hugh MacDougall: Cooper was a lifelong friend of the Jay family, beginning by going to school in Albany with John Jay's oldest son. I am fairly certain that the Jays introduced him to his wife Susan DeLancey. And it was John Jay who told him the stories of espionage during the Revolution that became the basis of Cooper's first bestseller, The Spy.

Kathy Fuller in Richmond, VA asks: hello, Hugh. Have you heard anything about NYSHA getting a copy of the Cooper Deerslayer from the British Film Institute?

Hugh MacDougall: NYSHA has a copy of the 1911 Deerslayer filmed on Otsego Lake. What it has recently received is a film from the 1911 film of a Boy Scout encampment, made by the same company. As you know, Kathy, that film, The Wig-Wag, had a scenario written by my grandfather.

Kathy Fuller in Richmond, VA asks: Ooops, that's what I meant. I hope to view both this summer. Was Cooper's descendant Susan Cooper still alive at the time of the Cooperstown Centennial in 1907?

Hugh MacDougall: Not Susan Fenimore Cooper, who died in 1894. There was a niece of Susan's who lived to 1916.

Kathy Fuller in Richmond, VA asks: Thanks, there is nothing you don't know! I am looking forward to your tour, coming up in an hour.

Club Leader: What about is work, The Last of the Mohicans (1826), do you think connected with the American public at that time? What can readers learn from that work in modern times?

Hugh MacDougall: Mohicans was about an event still very much in American memory in 1826 -- the disastrous surrender of Fort William Henry (like the Alamo or Pearl Harbor). It was also the first opportunity for Americans to read fiction based on a serious study of Native Americans.

Club Leader: Can you tell us a little more about that event?

Hugh MacDougall: Americans today can learn a lot from Mohicans -- How American became Americans in the fierce world of the wilderness wars, and how Americans even then were white, black, and red. The movies forget that Cora Munro is an African-American. Fort William Henry, on Lake George in New York, was captured by the French in 1757, and the surrendering British and American troops, and a few from there families, were attacked by the French Indian allies, some (maybe 150) killed, and many more taken captives to French Canada.

Club Leader: What did African Americans think of his work at that time?

Hugh MacDougall: Few African-Americans, alas, had the education or money to read him, so we don't really know. In any case, Cooper was better known for his writings about Native Americans, than for the African American characters in some of his books. But the friendship between the white Fid and the black Scipio, in The Red Rover is one of the great friendships in literature.

Annbe of Lincoln, Nebraska: I am fascinated by the Indian Heritage - What were French Indian allies?

Hugh MacDougall: The French had Indians -- hired on promises of loot and captives -- from many parts of Canada, and even from very distant lands beyond the Great Lakes. When the British were given lenient surrender terms, the French Indians felt betrayed. General Montcalm may have has as many as 1500 Indians with his troops.

Kathy Fuller in Richmond, VA asks: Hugh, were there any theatrical adaptations of Cooper novels on the 19th c. stage?

Hugh MacDougall: There were many theatrical adaptations of Cooper throughout the 19th Century -- both in England and America. Not to mention a few Operas. Probably more were from his sea tales than from his frontier books.

Ka900 of Hartford, CT aks: Was Cooper a slaveholder?

Hugh MacDougall: Cooper is believed to have owned one slave in his youth, before Slavery came to an end in NEw York in 1827. His father had owned a few slaves at various times (and sometimes rented them).

Club Leader:Please post your questions. There is 15 minutes remaining in the chat. At 10:30, you can see our guest give a tour on C-SPAN. Can you tell us a little about that tour?

Hugh MacDougall: It takes the viewers around those parts of the village of Cooperstown that are still much as they were in Cooper's time, as well as to a number of buldings connected with him. On the way, I talk a bit about Cooper's life in the village.

Club Leader: How did Cooperstown get its name?

Hugh MacDougall: It was named after Cooper's father, William Cooper, who founded the village in 1786, and had it made the county seat of the newly created Otsego County in 1791

Club Leader:Community members can view the tour online in the archive on the Cooper page on the American Writers site.

Kathy Fuller in Richmond, VA asks: Is the present NYSHA on the grounds of old Otsego Hall and did the Coopers own that beautiful lakeside land?

Hugh MacDougall: NYSHA (The New YOrk State Historical Association) is located where Cooper had a farm from 1813 to 1817, before moving back to Westchester County.Otsego Hall, built by his father, and remodelled when Cooper returned home in the 1830s, burned in 1853 -- it was next to where the Baseball Hall of Fame is now.

hcooper in New York, NY asks: Someone told me that the friendship between Hawkeye and Chingachgook is the first interracial friendship based on total equality in Western literature. Is that true? And if so, why isn't that better known?

Hugh MacDougall: I have also seen the suggestion -- which I think is well taken. Cooper is prepared to consider at least some Native Americans as morally and intellectually the full equals of white men, and worthy of an equal friendship.

Club Leader: What was his last work?

Hugh MacDougall: The Ways of the Hour, published in 1850, which is the first American courtroom murder mystery.

Club Leader: Do you recommend the book?

Hugh MacDougall: Yes, though it's a bit talky. Cooper takes on a lot of political issues, including the corruption of juries, crooked lawyers, and gives a rather old fashioned view of the rights of women.

lnelson7 in Burke, VA asks: I have 12 books from the Household Edition of J. Fenimore Cooper's Works and another from the Riverside Literature Series (1876) They are in good condition, and slightly worn on the back. Do you know what value they may have?

Hugh MacDougall: Reprints of Cooper's books are usually valuable only as reading copies -- generally can be sold for only $10 or. Some of those which you have contain special introductions by Cooper's daughters, Susan Fenimore Cooper, and might be worth a little more.

Club Leader: Community members can purchase books from the series via Borders Books online - please visit the American Writers Community Bookstore online. Do you have any departing comments for us about James Fenimore Coopper?

Hugh MacDougall: Only that he is a writer who deserves to be much better known, and who can still be read for enjoyment, and who has a lot to say that is as relevant to the year 2001 as when it was written. The more I read and learn the more fascinated I get.

Club Leader: How can we learn more about the James Fenimore Cooper society?

Hugh MacDougall: You can go to the James Fenimore Cooper Society website at www.oneonta.edu/~cooper/ or contact us directly at jfcooper@stny.rr.com

Kathy Fuller in Richmond, VA asks: Thanks, Hugh! C-SPAN is doing a great job with this program on tv and on-line. I'll be in touch soon.

lnelson7 in Burke, VA asks: After watching the show and being with this chat- I will read the books I have . The titles are intriguing Crater and Monikins

Hugh MacDougall: The Crater is one of the first castaway books after Robinson Crusoe, and was the basis for Jules Verne"s The Mysterious Island. It's also an early book about a utopia.

The Monikins -- about intelligent monkeys in Antarctica -- is a very funny satire on British and American Society in the 1830s

Club Leader: Thank you for joining us. Thank you Mr. MacDougall!

Hugh MacDougall: And thank you, Club leader.