The collection consists of a portrait engraving of Cook and photographs of Cook's sculpture on display in the Martha Cook Building.
William Wilson Cook was born in Hillsdale, Michigan on April 16, 1858 to John Potter Cook and Martha Wolford Cook. He attended Hillsdale Academy and Hillsdale College before enrolling in the University of Michigan in 1876. While a student at the university, Cook participated in Delta Tau Delta. After receiving his Bachelor of Arts in 1880 and Bachelor of Laws in 1882, Cook moved to New York City and worked in at least one legal practice. He also participated in an effort, during the early 1890s, to purchase all street railways in Detroit, Michigan. From 1895-1920, Cook served as general counsel to several major telecommunications companies associated with industrialists John William Mackay and Clarence Mackay, including the Commercial Cable Company as well as Postal Telegraph Company. These efforts resulted in Cook amassing a significant fortune.
In addition to his professional work, Cook was a philanthropist. He donated to Hillsdale College from circa 1903-1916, part of which established and supported the college's Department of Domestic Service. Most notably, beginning in the 1910s, he supported various construction projects at the University of Michigan. These efforts produced the Martha Cook Building, which opened in 1915 as one of the university's first dormitories for women, as well as the four buildings that comprise the Law Quadrangle: the Lawyer's Club, John P. Cook dormitory, the Legal Research Building (also known as the Law Library), and Hutchins Hall. He also bequeathed to the university's Law School a significant endowment that supported research efforts as well as several lecture series.
Cook was also an author and his works—such as Trusts: The Recent Combinations in Trade and Cook on Corporations—addressed topics that included corporation law, railroads, stockholders' rights, and trusts. He also published a nativist and prejudiced work, entitled American Institutions and Their Preservation. Additionally, Cook was affiliated with numerous clubs and organizations, including New York's Kane Masonic Lodge, Law Institute, and Union League Club, as well as the Blooming Grove Hunting and Fishing Club in Pennsylvania.
Cook died in Port Chester, New York, on June 4, 1930. In 1931, Professor Jesse S. Reeves was named the William W. Cook Professor of American Institutions and Chairman of the Department of Political Science. In 2003, the William W. Cook Professorship in Law was established.
To read more about William W. Cook, consult Margaret A. Leary's biography of Cook, Giving It All Away: The Story of William W. Cook and His Michigan Law Quadrangle.
