Jean-Baptiste André Godin

Born on 26 January 1817 at Esquéhéries (Aisne), Godin was the son of an artisan smith and his wife. Starting work at his father's forge, he entered an iron works at age eleven as an apprentice. At age seventeen, he made a tour of France as journeyman with his older cousin, Jean-Nicholas Moret, also an ironsmith. ==Marriage and family==

In 1840, he first married Esther Lemaire, at the age of 23. They had a son M. Émile Godin. On July 14, 1886, after his first wife had died, Godin married Marie-Adèle Moret (27 April 1840 - 18 April 1908), born in Brie-Comte-Robert (Seine-et- Marne). She was the second daughter of his cousin Jean-Nicholas Moret and his wife Marie-Jean Philippe. Before their marriage, she had worked at Le Familistère for nearly 25 years, where she established numerous services for families with children: the nursery, infant school, and primary school; taught teachers; and set up an insurance program for workers, as well as founding health facilities. ==Career==

Returning to Esquéhéries with his new wife in 1840, Godin started a small factory for the manufacture of castings for heating-stoves. That year he took out a patent for the stove, which he had invented. He believed that this was going to be a useful product for the age. With his business increasing rapidly, to take advantage of the railroad at Guise, Godin moved the factory there in 1846. He manufactured cookers and heating stoves of many kinds, mainly made from cast iron. Sometimes these were enameled. He became quite wealthy and used his money to establish funds and development for workers. At the same time, Godin and his cousin Moret had been learning about current socialist and communist thinking. Godin became an ardent disciple of the utopian Charles Fourier, whom he started studying in 1842, and thought hard about the future of workers and their communities. He helped fund V. P. Considerant's (q.v.) 1855 utopian community in Texas, known as La Reunion, at the site of present-day Dallas. He learned by its failure, due partly to colonists ill-suited as agricultural pioneers. At the time of Godin's death in 1888, the annual output of Godin et Cie was valued at over four million francs (4,160,000). In 1908 the employees numbered over 2000 and production was over seven million francs annually. ==Godin's Familistère - its development and later history==

From 1856 to 1859 Godin started the Familistère (Social Palace) in Guise on more carefully developed plans. His intention was to improve housing for workers, but also "production, trade, supply, education, and recreation", all the facets of life of a modern worker. The workers and residents did eventually come to own the buildings and the foundry. The foundry operated as a co-op or joint-stock company for decades. The building housing the nourricerie-pouponnat was destroyed in 1918 during World War I and never rebuilt. The foundry was still owned by the workers in the 1950s, but shortly afer that the manufacturer Le Creuset took it over in a purchase. In 1968 the cooperative association for the Social Palace was dissolved, and the apartments were sold at moderate prices by Godin S.A. They have been gradually modified through individual owners' decisions. The same year, the cooperative economats were dissolved. In 1991 its building was classified as a Monument Historique, and in 2000 restoration of the building was begun. In the early 21st century, some of the domestic buildings were restored for private, adaptive use. Restoration of the economats building was completed in 2008, with spaces adapted as a cafe, a bookstore and gift shop, and an exhibition area. The communal laundry rooms, baths and swimming pool, in a separate building on the opposite bank, where water was heated by the factory, had become derelict but have been restored. The communal laundry has been converted to a meeting room, and the drying room to an exhibition room. ==Legacy and honors==

• In 1882 Godin was created a Knight of the Legion of Honor. • Working models of the Godin stoves are still to be found in use all over France, and some are for sale on eBay. • Some of the domestic buildings at the Familistère have been updated for residents, and special purpose buildings have been restored for contemporary use. The site is open for visitors and tours, and there are plans to establish a museum of industry. ==Works==

• Solutions sociales (1871); • Les Socialistes et les Droits du travail (1874); • Mutualité sociale et association du capital et du travail (1880); and • La Republique du travail et la reforme parlementaire (1889). == See also ==