Joseph Thompson Goodman (September 18, 1838–October 1, 1917) was an American journalist, writer, and
epigrapher. During the
Comstock silver boom in Virginia City, Nevada, he was owner and editor of the ''
Territorial Enterprise
The ''Territorial Enterprise'', founded by William Jernegan and Alfred James on December 18, 1858, was a newspaper published in Virginia City, Nevada. Published for its first two years in Genoa in what was then Utah Territory, new owners Jonath ...
'', one of the largest and most influential newspapers on the West Coast. He hired
Samuel Clemens as a reporter for the paper, giving Clemens his "start" as a professional writer. He later became interested in deciphering Maya inscriptions and made significant contributions in the field.
Life
Goodman was born on September 18, 1838 in
Masonville, New York
Masonville is a town in Delaware County, New York, United States. The population was 1,320 at the 2010 census. The town is in the western part of the county.
History
The town was formed in 1811 from the town of Sidney. It was named for the Re ...
.
[Williams, 1985] In 1856 he moved to California with his father and began working as a typesetter at ''
The Golden Era'', a leading literary newspaper in San Francisco. In less than five years he became the owner and editor of the ''
Territorial Enterprise
The ''Territorial Enterprise'', founded by William Jernegan and Alfred James on December 18, 1858, was a newspaper published in Virginia City, Nevada. Published for its first two years in Genoa in what was then Utah Territory, new owners Jonath ...
'' in
Virginia City, Nevada
Virginia City is a census-designated place (CDP) that is the county seat of Storey County, Nevada, and the largest community in the county. The city is a part of the Reno– Sparks Metropolitan Statistical Area.
Virginia City developed as a boom ...
. Goodman grew the ''Enterprise'' from a struggling local paper into one of the preeminent west coast newspapers with a national following. It was known for its expert reporting on the mining industry, its literary quality, and its editorial stances against corruption in business and government.
[Berkove, 1991]
The ''Enterprise'' was financially independent and Goodman was fearless in his editorial stances. Early on he exposed the corruption of the Nevada Territory Supreme Court and forced the entire bench to resign. He denounced the formation of a diamond-mining corporation as a swindle that was soon to be exposed as the
diamond hoax of 1872. In 1872 he opposed the US Senate candidacy of
William Sharon, one of the wealthiest and most ruthless financiers in the
Comstock.
Sharon lost the election, in large part due to Goodman's opposition. In 1874 when he was going to run again for the Senate, Sharon bought the ''Enterprise'' from Goodman to ensure his successful candidacy.
In 1862 Goodman hired
Samuel Clemens as a local reporter. Although Clemens had published short stories previously, his work under Goodman's editorship at the ''Territorial Enterprise'' was credited with giving the author his initial "start" due to the extensive circulation of the newspaper. Goodman and Clemens became friends and corresponded for many years. In 1871 Goodman visited Clemens in New York to assist him with the composition of ''
Roughing It
''Roughing It'' is a book of semi-autobiographical travel literature by Mark Twain. It was written in 1870–71 and published in 1872, as a prequel to his first travel book ''The Innocents Abroad'' (1869). ''Roughing It'' is dedicated to Twa ...
''.
[Morley, 1919]
The ''Enterprise'' formed the nucleus of a group of writers that would eventually become known as the
Sagebrush School
The Sagebrush School was the literary movement written primarily by men of Nevada. The sagebrush shrub is prevalent in the state. It was a broad-based movement as it included various literary genres such as drama, essays, fiction, history, humor, ...
of literature. Goodman himself was a writer in this tradition along with Clemens,
Dan DeQuille,
Rollin M. Daggett
Rollin Mallory Daggett (February 22, 1831 – November 12, 1901) was a 19th-century American politician, minister, and diplomat. Daggett served a single term as a United States representative from Nevada from 1879 to 1881.
Biography
Daggett w ...
and several other writers who worked in Virginia City at some point in their careers.
[Berkove & Kowalewski, 1997] In 1870 Goodman travelled to Europe and sent back letters to the ''Enterprise'' detailing his experiences. They were published on the front page under the title, "Somewhat from Abroad (From an Irregular Correspondent)."
[Crow, 2003][Mighels, 1893]
In 1871 Goodman and
Rollin M. Daggett
Rollin Mallory Daggett (February 22, 1831 – November 12, 1901) was a 19th-century American politician, minister, and diplomat. Daggett served a single term as a United States representative from Nevada from 1879 to 1881.
Biography
Daggett w ...
coauthored the play ''The Psychoscope''. In 1872 the play ran for one brief engagement in Virginia City. It starred
John McCullough along with the touring cast of the
California Theatre. The play exceeded Victorian sensibilities by portraying the inner workings of a brothel, and was never again presented in the 19th century.
Goodman sold his Virginia City newspaper in 1874, returned to San Francisco and took a seat on the
Pacific Stock Exchange. He made a fortune in various mining investments including a silver mine he purchased with
John P. Jones. He also continued to work as a journalist and writer, becoming managing editor of the ''San Francisco Post'' and founding '' The San Franciscan'', a distinguished literary magazine.
Later, in the early 1880s, Goodman purchased a large raisin vineyard near Fresno and lived there several years. During that time he became interested in the glyphs of the ancient Mayas and devoted many years to deciphering them. Goodman gave credit to
Gustavus A. Eisen for directing his attention to the problems of the Maya inscriptions and calendar. Eisen was a scientist at the
California Academy of Sciences
The California Academy of Sciences is a research institute and natural history museum in San Francisco, California, that is among the largest museums of natural history in the world, housing over 46 million specimens. The Academy began in 1853 ...
and also owned a vineyard in the Fresno area. With Eisen's encouragement, professional contacts, and research materials, Goodman set to work.
His research was initially guided by previously published research as well as photographic documentation of molds and glyphs. Most of the photographs were supplied by
Alfred Maudslay
Alfred Percival Maudslay FRAI (18 March 1850 – 22 January 1931) was a British diplomat, explorer, and archaeologist. He was one of the first Europeans to study Maya ruins. He also fully translated and annotated the best version of Bernal ...
, an English archaeologist who made significant contributions to Central American archeology. His most important breakthrough occurred when he came across the ''
Relación de las cosas de Yucatán'' by Bishop
Diego de Landa, written in 1566 but never published until 1864 when it was uncovered by the French antiquarian,
Brasseur de Bourbourg Brasseur is a French-language surname, meaning "brewer" and may refer to:
A family of French actors:
* Pierre Brasseur (1905–1972), a French actor
* Claude Brasseur (1936-2020), a French actor
* Alexandre Brasseur (born 1971), a French actor
A ...
.
Goodman spent 12 years puzzling over the glyphs and ultimately determined that more than half of the inscriptions were related to mathematics and the Maya calendar. One of his most important contributions was the calculation of a correlation between the
Maya calendar and the
Gregorian calendar
The Gregorian calendar is the calendar used in most parts of the world. It was introduced in October 1582 by Pope Gregory XIII as a modification of, and replacement for, the Julian calendar. The principal change was to space leap years dif ...
. This became the basis for the
Goodman-Martinez-Thompson correlation
The Mesoamerican Long Count calendar is a non-repeating vigesimal, base-20 and base-18 calendar used by several pre-Columbian Mesoamerican cultures, most notably the Maya civilization, Maya. For this reason, it is often known as the Maya Long C ...
. Goodman had hoped that the California Academy of Sciences would publish his findings but they declined. Instead, Maudslay arranged to include it as an appendix to his volume on Maya archaeology, published in 1897.
In 1897 Goodman moved to
Alameda, California where he resided until his death on October 1, 1917.
[Sausalito News, 1917]
Notes
References
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External links
*Goodman, Joseph T. (1838-1917) Papers, Peabody Museum (two boxes). http://id.lib.harvard.edu/ead/pea00010/catalog
{{DEFAULTSORT:Goodman, Joseph T.
American male journalists
Mesoamerican epigraphers
Sagebrush School