Eliza Anderson Godefroy

Eliza Anderson Godefroy was most likely the first woman to edit a general-interest magazine in the United States. In 1806 and 1807, at the age of 26, she was the founder and editor of a Baltimore publication called The Observer.

Godefroy—or Anderson, as she was then known—was the daughter of a prominent Baltimore physician, Dr. John Crawford. In 1799, at the age of 19, she married a local merchant named Henry Anderson, but he had abandoned his wife and infant daughter by 1801. In 1805, Anderson accompanied her friend and fellow Baltimorean Elizabeth Patterson Bonaparte during a journey to Europe that was undertaken in a vain attempt to convince Napoleon Bonaparte to recognize her marriage to his youngest brother, Jérôme-Napoléon Bonaparte.

At some point after Anderson returned to Baltimore in November 1805, she became associated with a weekly publication called The Companion and Weekly Miscellany, which was published from November 1804 until October 1806. While the use of pseudonyms in the magazine—conventional at the time—makes it difficult to be sure exactly who was editing it, it appears that at some point in September 1806 Anderson became its editor. Shortly thereafter she decided to cease publication of The Companion and start a new magazine, The Observer, that would cover a broader range of subjects and adopt a more satirical tone.

Although initially there appears to have been some attempt to hide the fact that the editor of the new publication was female, after a few weeks Anderson adopted the pen name "Beatrice Ironside" for her editorial columns. Shortly thereafter, Anderson addressed the matter of her gender head on, acknowledging that "much curiosity had been excited to know, what manner of woman our female editor may be," and undertaking to introduce herself to her readership.

While a few widows had taken on the role of editing or publishing newspapers after the death of their husbands, the idea of a female editor was certainly a novel one in 1807. Secondary sources on the history of women editors have overlooked Anderson, identifying the first woman to edit a magazine as Mary Clarke Carr, who published the Intellectual Regale, or Ladies Tea Tray, in Philadelphia beginning in 1814—seven years after Anderson began publishing The Observer. Moreover, Carr's magazine, like almost all magazines edited by women in the 19th century, was aimed at a female audience, while Anderson's publication was directed at both men and women.

Almost immediately, Anderson became embroiled in what was to be the first of a number of journalistic vendettas: her featured columnist, "Benjamin Bickerstaff," quit in a huff after Anderson made some sarcastic remarks about young Baltimore ladies and what Anderson perceived to be their affectations. Later in 1807, Anderson's sarcasm about the state of the arts and culture in Baltimore, which she found sadly lacking, brought accusations that she was elitist and unpatriotic. Further criticism and outrage came her way when, in the fall of 1807, Anderson's translation of a scandalous French novel, Claire d'Albe by Sophie Cottin, was published.

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