Frederic W. Goudy was born March 8, 1865 in Bloomington, Illinois. He graduated from high school in 1883 & commenced work as a bookkeeper & working in his father's real estate office. Four years later he moved to Minnesota & then Chicago to work as a clerk at a bookstore. There he comes to discover the fine editions of English private presses.

He began a press in 1895 & it subsequently went bankrupt. He sells his first designed font for $10.00. He marries a bookkeeper in 1897 & she becomes a great typesetter by 1935. Frederic himself by the year 1900, taught lettering. He provided lectures on typography for fifty years! Yet tragedy prevailed throughout his life, when in 1908 a fire demolishes his second press operation. Yet again in 1939 another catastrophic fire envelopes his engraving shop! By 1920 Goudy became an Art Director for three decades.