Russel Sturgis Cook

Russel(l) Sturgis Cook (1811–1864) was an American Congregationalist minister, and a secretary of the American Tract Society from 1839 to 1856. He was known also as Russell Salmon Cook, and built up colportage as basic to the Society's business model.

Early life
Cook was born at New Marlborough, Massachusetts. He attended Auburn Theological Seminary from 1832. In 1836 he was ordained, and became pastor at Lanesborough, Massachusetts.

American Tract Society
Cook encountered in New York in November 1838 William Allen Hallock (1794–1880), a minister and one of the founders of the American Tract Society (ATS). Cook shortly became Visiting and Financial Secretary of the ATS in New York. In 1841 he pioneered a new approach to the existing colporteur system, sending recruits to Indiana and Kentucky. By 1851 800 were employed in this way as tract sellers.

At an extended ATS fundraiser in 1842 at the Broadway Tabernacle, Cook softened the anti-Catholic campaigning of the period with a comment that Americans were probably no less sinners, in matters such as drunkenness and Sabbath-breaking, than Catholic immigrants. After the Compromise of 1850, Cook defended the Society's policy of not circulating abolitionist material. He did so on the grounds that by its constitution, the Society could only promote views that reflected the consensus of "evangelical Christians"; and that on slavery that consensus did not exist. William Jay, an ATS director, criticised that line of argument. Jay dropped his financial support for the ATS, explaining his reasoning in an open letter to Cook.

Later life and death
Cook died at Pleasant Valley, New York on 4 September 1864.

Works

 * Home Evangelization: A View of the Wants and Prospects of Our Country, Based on Facts and Relations of Colportage (1849 or 1850, anonymous), by "One of the Secretaries of the American Tract Society". An enlarged version was published in England in 1859, edited by Mrs William Fison.

Family
Cook was survived by his fourth wife. His wives were:


 * Anna Maria Mills (married 1837); she was the daughter of the Rev. Henry Mills.
 * Harriet Newell Rand (married 1841, died 1843); she was the daughter of the Rev. Asa Rand (1783–1871).
 * Harriet Ellsworth (married 1845, died 1848, leaving no children); she was the daughter of William W. Ellsworth.
 * Miss Malan, daughter of César Malan, married 1856–7 in Geneva on a voyage to Europe. Her sister Henriette Malan had married in 1850 James Cooley Fletcher, and another sister Cecile had married in 1850 another minister, Eli Edwin Hall (1818-1896).