author
Charles A. (Charles Augustus) Goodrich
1790–1862
A minister, teacher, and prolific 19th-century writer, this Connecticut author helped shape how young Americans learned history, geography, and religion. He is also often linked with the familiar saying about keeping “a place for everything.”
1 Audiobook
Great Events in the History of North and South America
by Charles A. (Charles Augustus) Goodrich
About the author
Born in Connecticut in 1790, Charles Augustus Goodrich was a Congregational minister as well as an author whose books reached a wide audience of young readers. He graduated from Yale in 1812, studied theology, and was ordained in 1816.
His ministry took him from Worcester, Massachusetts, to Berlin and later Hartford, Connecticut. Alongside his church work, he wrote extensively, producing history, biography, geography, and religious books, including A History of the United States of America, Lives of the Signers of the Declaration of Independence, and A Child's History of the United States. He also served in the Connecticut Senate and was elected to the American Antiquarian Society in 1820.
Goodrich came from a notably literary family and worked in the same broad world of educational writing as his brother Samuel Griswold Goodrich, better known as Peter Parley. Today he is remembered as both a clergyman and a practical, instructive writer whose books were meant to inform, guide, and make learning approachable.