A Bit of Housekeeping at Back in the Day
The header for this site now appears in Goudy Old Style type instead of the usual Times New Roman. Goudy Old Style is one of many type styles developed by Frederic W. Goudy. Call it a format change in the newsletter, but it’s also local history.
Goudy designed his Old Style type in 1915 for the American Type Founders, an 1892 trust created by the merger of twenty -three type foundries. Those twenty-three members represented about eighty-five percent of all the type manufactured in the U. S. at the time. Old Style was an instant success.
Goudy (1865-1947) was born at 610 East Jefferson Street in Bloomington, where his father was an educator. The original house is apparently gone now, replaced by a structure identified in local assessor records as having been built in 1896. The family lived in Bloomington until 1879 except for 1870-1873. Young Goudy operated print and publishing shops as an adult, and worked in the advertising business.
Miss Belle Goudy, an aunt of Frederic’s, was employed by Bloomington schools from 1866 until 1922. She is probably best remembered as principal of the old Third Ward (later Irving) School.
By the end of his career, Goudy had produced a reported 113 type styles (a 1946 Pantagraph article sets the number at 120). He is remembered as one of the most prolific type designers of all time. His actual production count may have been higher, but a 1939 fire destroyed all his equipment and designs. It is not known whether all the lost designs were later reproduced.
At the age of 82 Goudy died of an apparent heart attack on May 11, 1947 in Marlboro, New York. He was buried at Old Towne Cemetery at Newburgh, New York.
If you use a modern-day computer, chances are you have Goudy Old Style as one of your font options. Some writers have produced entire books in Goudy Old Style because of the Bloomington connection. However, for the purpose of this site, we will only use it for headers.
