Parke Godwin | Biography

Parke Godwin (25 February 1816-7 January 1904), social reformer, literary critic, and editor of the New York Evening Post, was born in Paterson, New Jersey, and died in New York City. He was a descendant of a notable New Jersey family that had played an important role in the American Revolution. Godwin's father fought in the War of 1812 and attained officer's rank. The Godwin family was active in the Whig Party and at his father's urging, Parke Godwin pursued a career in law and politics. Godwin enrolled at Princeton and graduated in 1834. Although trained for the bar, Godwin forsook his law practice in New York City for journalism. As a young writer in the city, Godwin soon became affiliated with the New York Evening Post, a newspaper with which he would be intermittently connected for forty-five years. At the Post, Godwin became a devotee of the "Loco-Foco" Democratic principles espoused by William Cullen Bryant, the newspaper's editor. In the years before the war, Godwin rose quickly in New York's genteel literary society and became Bryant's son-in-law and an assistant editor of the Post as well. Like many writers of his generation, Godwin believed that reform was the profession of all cultivated and moral men, and those who did not concern themselves with political and social criticism were lax in their civic responsibilities.

In addition to his work at the Post, Godwin was a contributor to John L. O'Sullivan's United States Magazine and Democratic Review. His articles on criminal justice, constitutional reform, and utilitarianism were well-received by readers of the Review and helped to bring him to the attention of Martin Van Buren and the Democratic Party in New York City. In 1840 Godwin campaigned for Van Buren's presidency and for his efforts was appointed Deputy Collector of the New York Custom House.

During the 1840s Godwin grew disillusioned with American politics as it appeared to him that neither the Whigs nor the Democrats were interested in addressing the crucial problems caused by urbanization and industrialism. At this time Godwin championed the nascent trade union movement and subsequently became a disciple of Charles Fourier, the widely-acclaimed French socialist. This latter decision precipitated a sharp political disagreement with Bryant and Godwin's resignation from the Post.

In Fourier's plan of economically self-sufficient cooperative communities based on a socialist model Godwin saw an alternative to the unemployment, poverty, and injustice caused by the "factory system" and "commercial despotism." In 1842 Godwin established with Albert Brisbane the Phalanx, a magazine dedicated to popularizing cooperative communities. Godwin also published A Popular View of the Doctrines of Charles Fourier and Democracy, Constructive and Pacific (both in 1844). In Democracy Godwin argued that unless rural cooperative communities were established throughout the United States to provide urban workers an alternative to the competitive capitalist system, class strife would ensue. Thus Godwin anticipated the Marxian formulation of class struggle in capitalist society, but his prescriptions for social change were reformist rather than revolutionary.

Godwin's interest in cooperative communities prompted him to become an ardent champion of the Brook Farm experiment. Many of the leaders who founded Brook Farm were strongly influenced by Fourier's work. Charles A. Dana, George W. Curtis, George Ripley, and Albert Brisbane espoused the ideals of Fourier. The Brook Farm Association was a rigorous form of social organization that combined the moral fervor of New England Transcendentalism with communitarian planning. As George Ripley, the leader of the community, was his close friend, Godwin served as Brook Farm's influential spokesman in urban publishing and trade union circles. During this period, Godwin edited the Harbinger, the first American magazine of literary and political commentary with a socialist viewpoint.

Godwin joined George Palmer Putnam in 1856 in the founding of Putnam's Monthly Magazine, a journal dedicated to lively discussions of politics and the arts in the United States. At Putnam's Godwin attempted to focus the American literary imagination on the trans-Mississippi frontier. It was out of the West, Godwin believed, that a literature of American democracy, unencumbered by the tradition of racial slavery, would emerge. Godwin's outspoken opposition to the expansion of slavery into the territories prompted him to join the Free Soil movement and the Republican Party. Later, as a contributing editor to the Atlantic Monthly, Godwin urged Americans to repudiate slavery. Throughout the presidential campaign of 1860 Godwin remained a loyal supporter of Abraham Lincoln and championed the cause of racial emancipation. In 1860 Godwin rejoined the Evening Post and acquired a financial interest in the paper. Although Godwin was a personal friend of Lincoln's, he argued constantly with the president and cabinet members over censorship, emancipation, and the conduct of the Civil War. During the postwar period, Godwin was instrumental in exposing the political corruption of William "Boss" Tweed in New York City. Following Bryant's death in 1878, Godwin sold all family interests in the Evening Post to Oswald Garrison Villard. Until his retirement in 1900, Godwin served as editor of the New York Commercial Advertiser.

Although Godwin is best known as a magazine writer and editor who crusaded for economic reform and social justice before the Civil War, he was a productive literary critic for most of the nineteenth century. His best known literary effort was his four-volume edition of Bryant's writings (1883-1884) and a two-volume companion biography of Bryant (1883). He also edited the two-volume Autobiography of Goethe (1846-1847) and wrote Vala, A Mythological Tale (1851), based on the life of Jenny Lind. His Commemorative Addresses (1895) provides insights on George W. Curtis, Bryant, Edwin Booth, and other literary figures of his age. As a member of New York's genteel society, Godwin was associated with most of the major literary movements of the nineteenth century, and his acquaintances ranged from Washington Irving to William Dean Howells.