Edward Gardner Lewis

Edward Gardner Lewis (March 4, 1869 – August 10, 1950) was an American magazine publisher, land development promoter, and visionary political activist. He was the founder of two planned communities that are now cities: University City, Missouri, and Atascadero, California. He created the American Woman's League (1907), a benefits fund for women who sold magazine subscriptions, as well as the American Woman's Republic (1911), a parallel organization designed to help women prepare themseves for a future in which they would have the right to vote. He also founded the People's University and its associated Art Academy in University City, as well as two daily newspapers and two banks.

Edward Gardner Lewis, commonly known as "E.G. Lewis", was born in Connecticut in 1869. After attending private schools, he got his bachelor's degree at Trinity College.

Lewis moved to St. Louis, Missouri, in the late 1890s, where he worked as a salesman of insect extermination products and medicines that were said to be highly questionable. He bought a local magazine called Winner and renamed it Woman's Magazine. He quickly built its circulation to a million and a half, amassing a fortune in the process. He also acquired another periodical, the Woman's Farm Journal.

In 1902, Lewis purchased 85 acres near the construction site for the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair, which became the nucleus of what is now University City, Missouri. In 1903, when his publishing operation outgrew its downtown St. Louis location, he began building a new Lewis Publishing Company headquarters and Press Annex at this site. After incorporating University City in 1906, he served three terms as mayor.

Between 1903 and 1915, he continued to acquire surrounding parcels and develop subdivisions, building the octagonal, Rococo-style Woman's Magazine Building (now City Hall) and the Egyptian Building (since destroyed). He founded the People's University and its Art Academy, where such artists as Adelaïde Alsop Robineau, Frederick Hurten Rhead, and Taxile Doat worked. He also established two daily newspapers and two banks, one of which — the "People's Bank" — was shut down by Postmaster General George B. Cortelyou because it would have offered mail-order services in direct competition with U.S. postal money orders.

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