Born in Bloomington, Illinois in 1865, Frederic W. Goudy, was one of the most well known and prolific American type designers.  His first type face was designed in 1896 for his company, the Camelot Press and was called Camelot.  In 1903 along with Will Ransom, they created the Village Press.  Over the years, Goudy moved the Village Press from Park Ridge, Illinois to Massachusetts, to New York City and finally in 1923 he moved it to Marlboro, New York. Unfortunately the Village Press had a devastating fire in 1939 where most of Goudy's work perished including 75 of his 100 type styles.  After the fire, Frederic Goudy devoted his life to teaching and lecturing.

Frederic Goudy is best known for his typestyles: Oldstyle, Kennerly, Garamond, Deepdone and Forum.  Goudy was his most popular typeface. This is due to its elegance and readability.  Designing all his typefaces by freehand created their unique characters.  Goudy's typestyle was similar to the oldtype styles, yet it had a uniqueness of form no others could rival.  Frederic Goudy authored "The Alphabet"(1918), "Elements of Lettering"(1922), and "Typologia"(1940).  He died in Marlboro, New York on
May 11, 1947.

Sources:

Encyclopedia Britannica: Biography on Frederic W. Goudy

Graphion: Frederick Goudy (1865-1947)

Infoplease short biographical History on Frederick Goudy