Frederick albert cook biography

Biographical Statement

Dr. Frederick A. Cook () is the most controversial figure in the history of polar exploration. His supporters maintain that Dr. Cook was the hero of the Belgian Antarctic Expedition, the first to climb Mount McKinley, the first to stand at the North Pole, and the victim of merciless and unrelenting persecution by Robert Peary and those who supported Peary's claim to have reached the pole first. Others believe that Dr. Cook faked his claims to both Mount McKinley and the North Pole and continued a career of deceit by using the mail to defraud investors in oil lands in Texas, for which Dr. Cook spent five years in federal prison (Cook eventually received a presidential pardon for this conviction).

In Dr. Frederick Albert Cook began his career as an explorer as a member of Peary's first expedition to North Greenland, where he served Peary's surgeon and as ethnologist. In , Cook volunteered for the Belgian Antarctic Expedition, and achieved international recognition in his role of surgeon and photographer. He made important scientific discoveries on this expedition, including the effect of eating raw meat in order to cure the ship's crew of scurvy. Cook also served a critical role on this expedition in his efforts to release the frozen Belgica by sawing a canal in the ice. In , Cook joined the Erik, in a relief expedition for Peary, sponsored by the Peary Arctic Club.

In and successively, Cook embarked on his first and second expeditions to Mount McKinley, and in claimed to have reached the summit. In , Cook made his quest to the North Pole, and claimed to have reached the Pole on April 21, However, drifting ice prohibited his southward return, and he was forced to spend the Polar night in a shelter with his two Eskimo companions. It wasn't until September 1, that Cook announced his discovery of the North Pole. A week later, Peary denounced Cook as a fraud and claimed that he, Peary, had in fact reached the North Pole first. In October of

About Dr. Frederick A. Cook

Cook caught the polar wanderlust only a year after his graduation from the College of Physicians and Surgeons at New York University, in , perhaps influenced by the death of his first wife in childbirth. Hardened by a youth spent in the Catskill Mountains (he was born in Hortonville, New York, to an immigrant German physician), and later supporting his widowed mother in Brooklyn while securing his education, Cook had ambition and enormous energy. Over the next two decades, he earned a reputation as a doctor afield, interrupting a sporadic medical practice to offer himself as surgeon or leader of eight expeditions "Poleward," a term he often used.

First going north with the young naval civil engineer Robert Edwin Peary* on his North Greenland Expedition in , Cook earned Peary's praise for "unruffled patience and coolness in an emergency." After returning to an erratic general practice, Cook went north again in two arctic commands on the Zita () and the Miranda (). When near-disaster struck the Miranda, the twenty-nine-year-old Cook navigated an open boat across 90 miles of polar sea to obtain rescue. The Arctic Club of America was born out of this voyage, and Cook became its first president. He would later preside over th

Dr. Frederick Albert Cook was American explorer and Physician that is best known for his claim of being the first man that reached the North Pole in His claim is widely speculated to be false, and discovery was credited to the Robert Peary that reached the Northern Pole in

Frederick Cook was born on June 10, in Hortonville, Sullivan County, New York as a son of a recent German immigrant Dr. Theodore A. Koch and Magdalena Long. After receiving his M.D. status in , he started his life as explorer. He was a member of a several Arctic expeditions, most notably with Robert Peary () and Adrien de Gerlache (–). During those missions, Cook also made acquaintance with famous Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen.

His journey to the North Pole started in after his short exploration of the Mr. McKinley witch brought him more controversy later on (he did not provide any proof that he reached its peak). Cook’s North Pole expedition consisted of a very small team, only himself and two Inuit men (Ahpellah and Etukishook).

After fourteen months on the Arctic, he returned to civilization on Greenland. Again, he did not manage to provide certain proof of him reaching the North Pole. According to his claims, he left Annoatok settlement in Northern Greenland in February and has reached Northern pole on April From there they encountered several weather problems, molten ice that cut of his route, and has managed barely to survive reaching the Annoatok in spring of Logbooks with his measurements were never recovered and few pieces of sextant navigational data that Frederick Cook released in contained incorrect information.

In the following years, his reputation was severely damaged, and international press and scientist all claimed that expedition of Robert Peary was first on the Pole. During early 20s, he was incarcerated and sentenced to jail until for his unlawful involvement with Texas oil business.

He died on August 5, from the c

American explorer (–)

For other people named Frederick Cook, see Frederick Cook (disambiguation).

Frederick Albert Cook (June 10, &#;– August 5, ) was an American explorer, physician and ethnographer, who is most known for allegedly being the first to reach the North Pole on April 21, A competing claim was made a year later by Robert Peary, though both men's accounts have since been fiercely disputed; in December , after reviewing Cook's limited records, a commission of the University of Copenhagen ruled his claim unproven. Nonetheless, in , Cook published a memoir of the expedition in which he maintained the veracity of his assertions. In addition, he also claimed to have been the first person to reach the summit of Denali (then known as Mount McKinley), the highest mountain in North America, a claim which has since been similarly discredited. Though he may not have achieved either Denali or the North Pole, his was the first and only expedition where a United States national discovered an Arctic island, Meighen Island.

Biography

Cook was born in Hortonville, New York, in Sullivan County. (His birthplace is sometimes listed as Callicoon or Delaware, both also in Sullivan County.) His parents, Theodor and Magdalena Koch, were recent German immigrants who adopted an anglicized version of their surname. He attended local schools before college. After graduating from Columbia University, he studied medicine at what is today NYU's Grossman School of Medicine, receiving his doctorate in

Cook married Libby Forbes in She died two years later. In , on his 37th birthday, he married Marie Fidele Hunt. They had two daughters together. They divorced in

Early expeditions

Cook was the surgeon on Robert Peary's Arctic expedition of –, and on the Belgian Antarctic Expedition of – He contributed to saving the lives of its crew members when their ship – the B