George Brown Goode was born 13 February 1851 in New Albany, Indiana, to Francis Collier Goode and Sarah Woodruff Crane Goode. He spent his childhood in Cincinnati, Ohio and Amenia, New York. He married Sarah Ford Judd 29 November 1877. She was the daughter of Orange Judd, a prominent agricultural writer. Together, they had four children: Margaret Judd, Kenneth Mackarness, Francis Collier, and Philip Burwell. In addition to his scientific publications, Goode wrote Virginia Cousins, a history of the Goode family he traced back to John Goode, a 17th-century colonist from Whitby.
Career
In 1872, Goode started working with Spencer Baird, soon becoming his trusted assistant. While working with Baird, Goode led research sponsored by the United States Fish Commission, and oversaw many Smithsonian displays and exhibitions, for the museum itself and for expositions around the world; Goode's first of these were the preparations for the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition, for which the Smithsonian was responsible for all the government displays. He also served as the assistant secretary of the Smithsonian Institution in charge of the United States National Museum. Goode effectively ran both the fish research program of the U.S. Fish Commission and the Smithsonian Institution from 1873 to 1887. He was the United States Commissioner for Fish and Fisheries from 1887 to 1888. He authored many books and monographs and wrote more than 100 scientific reports and notes. Goode was a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He received from the Queen Regent of Spain the decoration of Commander in the Royal Order of Ysabel la Catolica. He also was awarded the degree of Ph.D. from Indiana University and that of LL.D. from Wesleyan University. He died at Lanier Heights in Washington, D.C., on September 6, 1896, at the age of only 45, after a bout with pneumonia. He had been at work on a history of the Smithsonian's first fifty years, which were being celebrated in 1896. The then head of the Smithsonian, Samuel Pierpont Langley, completed the volume and wrote a memorial to Goode, published in 1901.
Eponymy
The genusGoodea of splitfins was named in his honour by David Starr Jordan in 1880; this in turn gave his name to the family Goodeidae. Species named after him include:
