 Herbert
Seely Bigelow was born in Elkhart, Indiana, on January
4, 1870. He attended Indiana public schools, and later
attended Oberlin College in Oberlin, Ohio. In 1894 he
graduated from Western Reserve University in Cleveland,
Ohio, and then moved to Cincinnati to attend Lane Theological
Seminary. Bigelow was ordained as a Congregational minister
in 1895, and soon after became the pastor of the Vine
Street Congregational Church in Cincinnati.
While serving as a minister, Bigelow became interested
in Progressivism and through that became involved in
politics. The Progressive movement in the early 20th
century was concerned with political corruption and
worked for moral reforms in society. Two political reforms
Progressives introduced were the initiative and the
referendum, both of which allowed issues to be put directly
on ballots so that citizens, rather than only legislators,
could control whether or not those laws passed. Herbert
Bigelow and his supporters founded the Direct Legislation
League to lobby for the initiative and referendum to
be established in Ohio. Because of his work in that
regard, Herbert Bigelow was elected president of Ohio's
Constitutional Convention in 1912. At the convention,
Bigelow was greatly influential in getting both the
initiative and the referendum passed, and the people
of Ohio voted to approve them later that same year.
Bigelow was then elected to the Ohio House of representatives
in 1913 and served there one term.
Bigelow became a well-known leader of the Progressive
movement in Ohio, and assisted other Ohio Progressives
such as Tom Johnson and Toledo mayor Brand Whitlock.
He led liberal Democrats who fought against the Boss
George Cox Republican political machine in Cincinnati.
Bigelow continued moving to the left politically and
in 1917, joined the Socialist party. He was an outspoken
opponent of World War I, and many Ohioans considered
him unpatriotic because of his views. He became the
minister of the People's Church and Town Meeting Society
in downtown Cincinnati and used that venue to voice
his opposition to the Wilson administration and the
war effort in general.
However, he disagreed with the Socialists who completely
condemned all American involvement in the war and instead
claimed to hold a more moderate position than many other
Socialists held regarding the war. Many people still
called his work subversive. In 1917, a group kidnapped
him and left him along the road after beating him. Though
some public reaction condemned the use of physical violence
against him, the local authorities did not take action
to sympathize with Bigelow either.
Discouraged, Bigelow continued to serve as a minister
and did not return to the political arena until the
1930s. In 1936, Bigelow served on the Cincinnati City
Council. That same year he managed to defeat the Republican
incumbent William Hess in the Congressional elections.
Bigelow ran as a Democrat, wresting the 2nd District
seat from 20 years of Republican control. He ran for
re-election but lost the 1938 election to Hess.
He served again as a member of the Cincinnati City
Council in 1940 and 1941. Bigelow then returned to ministry
at the Vine Street Congregational Church and continued
there as pastor until his death. He died in Cincinnati
on November 11, 1951, and was cremated.
Sources:
Biographical Directory of the United States Congress
Ohio Historical Society, 2005, Ohio History Central:
An Online Encyclopedia of Ohio History
The Scholarly Journal of the Ohio Historical Society,
Vol. 81, pg. 109-113
Picture taken from pg. 109 of OH Scholarly Journal of
Ohio Historical Society:
http://publications.ohiohistory.org/ohstemplate.cfm?action=detail&Page=0081109.html
&StartPage=108&EndPage=121&volume=81&newtitle=Volume%2081%20Page%20108
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