Louis Antoine Godey

{{Infobox person

| name = Louis Antoine Godey

| image = File:Louis A GodeyNYPL.jpg

| caption = Louis A. Godey by Frederick Gutekunst

| birth_date = {{Birth date|1804|6|6|mf=y}}

| birth_place = New York, U.S.

| death_date = {{death date and age|1878|11|29|1804|6|6|mf=y}}

| death_place = Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.

| resting_place = Laurel Hill Cemetery, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.

| occupation = Newspaper editor, women's fashion magazine publisher

}}

Louis Antoine Godey (June 6, 1804 – November 29, 1878) was an American editor and publisher. He was the founder of Godey's Lady's Book in 1837, the first successful American women's fashion magazine.

Biography

Godey was born to Louis and Margaret Godey in New York City. His parents were immigrants from Sens, France, who fled during the French Revolution.{{cite book |last1=Kirkpatrick |first1=Melanie |title=Lady Editor: Sarah Josepha Hale and the Making of the Modern American Woman |date=2021 |publisher=Encounter Books |isbn=9781641771795 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=o7zyDwAAQBAJ |access-date=26 December 2021}} His family was poor and he had no formal schooling, but he was self-educated. At age 15, he took a job as a newspaper boy in New York. Several years later, he moved to Philadelphia and became an editor for the Daily Chronicle. In 1830, he published the first edition of the Lady's Book, composed of reprinted articles and illustrations from British magazines.{{cite web |title=Godey's Lady's Book |url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/Godeys-Ladys-Book#ref668623 |website=www.britannica.com |publisher=Encyclopedia Britannica |access-date=24 December 2021}} In 1837, Godey merged Lady's Book with Ladies' Magazine, the oldest publication of its type, published out of Boston.{{sfn|Oberholtzer|1906|p=228}} Godey married Maria Duke in 1833 and had five children.

In 1836, Godey's Publishing House was the first American publisher of the seafaring novels of Frederick Marryat. Godey also partnered with fellow publisher Morton McMichael and others to publish the Saturday News, a weekly magazine that focused on families.

File:Godey's1844April.jpg April 1844]]

Godey wanted to provide more content developed by American authors and hired Sarah Josepha Hale to be editor of Godey's Lady's Book in 1837. She remained the editor until her retirement in 1877.{{sfn|Oberholtzer|1906|p=232}} The magazine became extremely popular, becoming America's highest circulated magazine in the 1840sReynolds, David F. "Poe's Art of Transformation: 'The Cask of Amontillado' in Its Cultural Context", as collected in The American Novel: New Essays on Poe's Major Tales, Kenneth Silverman, ed. Cambridge University Press, 1992. p. 101 {{ISBN|9780521410182}} and reaching over 150,000 subscribers by 1858.{{cite book |last1=Mott |first1=Frank Luter |title=A History of American Magazines 1741-1850 |date=1966 |publisher=The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press |location=Cambridge, Massachusetts |page=581 |isbn=9780674395503 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TIN35IEDPX8C |access-date=26 December 2021}} Many famous authors were published in Godey's Lady's Book, including Nathaniel Hawthorne, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Edgar Allan Poe, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and Harriet Beecher Stowe.

Godey implemented a service where readers could order copies of engravings published in the magazine and other items. This was a precursor to mail order catalogs that became popular later in the 19th century. He also developed programs to offer "premiums" or gifts to those who subscribed or renewed their subscriptions. He also innovated and offered reduced subscription rates to groups that pooled their money and purchased multiple copies of the magazine. Godey copyrighted each issue of Godey's Lady's Book starting in 1845, making it one of the first magazines in America to do so.Moss, Sidney P. Poe's Literary Battles: The Critic in the Context of His Literary Milieu. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 1962. p. 23

Godey published two other magazines, The Young People’s Book (1841) and Lady’s Musical Library (1842), with less successful results.{{cite web |last1=Briczinski |first1=Paul |title=Louis Antoine Godey |url=https://pabook.libraries.psu.edu/literary-cultural-heritage-map-pa/bios/Godey__Louis_Antoine |website=www.pabook.libraries.psu.edu |publisher=Pennsylvania Center for the Book |access-date=26 December 2021}}

File:LouisAGodeyGrave.jpg, Philadelphia.]]

In the 1870s, he retired to St. Augustine, Florida, but returned to Philadelphia where he died in 1878. At the time of his death, his fortune was estimated at $1 million, approximately $26 million today. He and his wife are buried at Laurel Hill Cemetery in Philadelphia.{{cite book |last1=Yaster |first1=Carol |last2=Wolgemuth |first2=Rachel |title=Laurel Hill Cemetery |date=2017 |publisher=Arcadia Publishing |location=Charleston SC |isbn=978-1-4671-2655-7 |page=78 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=znEuDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA78 |access-date=26 December 2021}}