Frederic William Goudy was born in Bloomington, Illinois, 18 March 1865, the son of John Fleming Gowdy (who later changed the spelling to the traditional Scotts “Goudy”), superintendent of schools in Bloomington, and Amanda Melvina Truesdell. Goudy began his life as an independent adult as a cashier and bookkeeper for a department store in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in 1888; shortly afterwards he moved to Springfield, Illinois, and then to Chicago, where he held a number of bookkeeping positions, visiting bookshops, meeting bibliophiles, becoming acquainted with the Arts and Crafts movement (in particular, the work of William Morris’s Kelmscott Press), and learning printing and typography on the side. In 1895, in collaboration with Cyrus Lauron Hooper, Goudy established the short-lived Booklet (later renamed Camelot) Press, and obtained the commission to print the second volume of the fortnightly magazine, The Chap Book, published by Stone and Kimball, which was widely praised for its fine design. In 1896, after the collapse of the press, Goudy designed his first typeface for commercial use, Camelot, purchased by Dickinson Type Foundry in Boston. In 1897, he married Bertha M. Sprinks, and in 1899 finally set himself up as a free-lance designer. In 1903, together with his wife and Will Ransom, Goudy set up the Village Press, in Park Ridge, Illinois. The venture was modeled on the Arts and Crafts movement ideals of William Morris, and utilized a typeface, Village, originally created that same year for the Chicago clothing manufacturer, Kuppenheimer & Company. The first work printed was a reprint of “Printing”, an essay by William Morris and Emery Walker originally published in Arts and Crafts Essays by Members of the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society (1899). Goudy soon bought out Ransom, and moved the press, first, in 1904, to Hingham, Massachusetts, and in 1906 to New York City, where, in January 1908, all Goudy’s equipment and designs was destroyed by fire. The Goudys revived the press in 1912, moving it the following year to a house on Deepdene Road, Forest Hills Gardens, Long Island, where it remained until 1923, when it was removed to a property, renamed “Deepdene” by the Goudys, in Marlborough-on-Hudson, New York.

Goudy was the third most prolific designer of metal type in the United States, with 122 designs completed, and 90 typefaces cut and cast. His earliest was Camelot (1896); his first significant typeface was for the Lanston Monotype Machine Company, E-38, sometimes known as Goudy Light (1908). In 1911, Goudy produced Kennerley Old Style and Forum, the former for the H. G. Wells anthology, The Door in the Wall and Other Stories, published by Mitchell Kennerley. Both were highly successful, and brought him to the attention of the American Type Founders Company (ATF), who commissioned him to design what became known as Goudy Old Style, which was an instant success upon its release in 1915. ATF expanded the “Goudy family” of types, using in-house designers, into the late 1920s, but Goudy received no profits from these later designs, as he had sold the copyright for a flat fee, and had not entered into a licensing agreement. Goudy then entered into a relationship with Lanston Monotype, for whom he served as art director from 1920 to 1940, and for whom he designed a number of types, including Garamont (1921), one the most popular during his lifetime. However, he retained his independence as a type designer, accepting commissions from foundries, corporations, institutions, and individuals, and from 1926 onwards, he cut the matrices for all his types at his Village Press and Foundery at Deepdene, until a fire in January 1939 destroyed his equipment, designs, and several of his completed types. Despite the loss, Goudy continued to design, although at a much reduced rate, until his death. He was also a prolific lecturer, who was reputed to seldom turn down an invitation to speak, and the author of 59 works, including The Alphabet (1918), Elements of Lettering (1922), Typologia (1940), and the autobiographical A Half-Century of Type Design and Typography, 1895-1945 (1946). He died at Deepdene on 11 May 1947. His wife, Bertha, who had played a critical role as compositor for many of the publications of the Village Press, had predeceased him in 1935.

Goudy's connection to Scripps College began in the summer of 1938, during a visit to California to consult with the University of California on the type (University of California Old Style) he was designing for them. A business friend in Los Angeles, who was also a friend of Scripps librarian Dorothy M. Drake, was called away unexpectedly, and asked Drake to entertain Goudy. This began a friendship and extensive correspondence that lasted until Goudy's death in 1947. Goudy returned to California on University of California Press business in May 1939, and addressed a convocation at Scripps. By the summer of that year, Goudy and Drake were corresponding about a special type design for Scripps College; the earliest surviving drawing for this type is dated 31 July 1939. Goudy originally proposed a fee of $2850 for the type, but later settled for $1000. Scripps College president Ernest Jaqua authorized Goudy to proceed with the casting of the type in February 1941; the money was provided by Mrs. Catherine Coffin Phillips, California author, and grandmother of a member of the Scripps College class of 1941. In June 1941, the Class of 1941 presented its class gift, the Washington hand press on which Ward Ritchie had learned to print; Goudy visited the college in September for the formal presentation of his type. In 1944, the college commissioned Goudy to design an italic to accompany the roman type; Goudy had just finished designing and cutting the patterns for this type at the time of his death in 1947. The original drawings, patterns, and matrices were secured for the college by Joseph Arnold Foster, who had joined the Scripps faculty in 1946, to teach Humanities, American Literature, and printing.

Bernard Lewis, Bruce Rogers, Frederic W. Goudy, Behind the Type, The Life Story of Frederic W. Goudy (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 1941).

Judy Harvey Sahak, Dorothy Drake and the Scripps College Press (Claremont, California, 1992).