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| Affiliation | Democratic |
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| Name | Herbert S. Bigelow |
| Address |
Cincinnati, Ohio , United States |
| Email | None |
| Website | None |
| Born |
January 04, 1870
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| Died | November 11, 1951
(81 years)
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| Contributor | Thomas Walker |
| Last Modifed | Magical Horse
Mar 04, 2011 12:47pm |
| Tags |
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| Info | 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.
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