Background
Jean-Baptiste André Godin was born on the 26th of January 1817 at Esquéhéries (Aisne), the son of an artisan, he entered an iron-works at an early age, and at seventeen made a tour of France as journeyman.
industrialist and social reformer
Jean-Baptiste André Godin was born on the 26th of January 1817 at Esquéhéries (Aisne), the son of an artisan, he entered an iron-works at an early age, and at seventeen made a tour of France as journeyman.
Returning to Esqueheries in 1837, Jean-Baptiste André Godin started a small factory for the manufacture of castings for heating-stoves. From 1856-1859 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. He developed the Familistère as a self-contained community within the town, where he could encourage "social sympathy". In addition to a large factory for cast-iron manufacture, three large buildings, each four stories high, were constructed to house all the workers and their families, with each family having apartments of two or three rooms. By 1872, when a correspondent from the American Harper's Magazine visited the complex, 900 workers (including women) and their families were housed there, for a total population of about 1200. Godin developed the Familistère over 20 years, beginning soon after the 1848 Revolution and disruption in France. Through it all he worked for social reform. During the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, he helped defend the country. In 1871 Godin was elected deputy for Aisne, but retired in 1876 to devote himself to the management of the Familistère.
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. Godin also wrote several works on socialism.
In 1840 Jean-Baptiste André Godin first married to 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 was married to 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.