Herbert Huse ⁹ BIGELOW

In the early twentieth century, a forty-acre tract of land, originally called Quality Park by its owner, lay halfway between Minneapolis and St. Paul. A huge three-storey building of brick, granite and glass was built there in 1913, which was to become the home of the world's largest manufacturer of advertising specialties. The company is called Brown & Bigelow.

Although founded as early as 1896 by a Vermont-born Bigelow, the company did not achieve world-wide fame until its printing of a calendar featuring an unclothed movie starlet named Marilyn Monroe. Ms. Monroe received $50 as a modelling fee from the photographer.

Millions of copies of that calendar were sold over the next decade, but it was not Brown & Bigelow's first pin-up calendar. Their first art calendar had been printed in 1913 and featured "Colette," a portrait painting by Angelo Asti. The craze for pin-up calendars has long passed and now scenic and wildlife calendars have become the company's best sellers.

Brown & Bigelow is not limited to calendar printing. They produce a full line of advertising specialties. The Bigelow Society has several items donated by members over the years which feature the name of Brown and Bigelow. Faye (Bigelow) Dibble of Grand Rapids, MI donated two plotters with 1935 calendars. A small lady's purse mirror also imprinted by Brown & Bigelow was received from an unknown donor. Debra Rivera found a small shoe-brush while hunting for antiques in Conroe, TX. The brass top of the shoe-brush is etched with the picture of a horse and rider jumping over a stile fence and the following inscription:

The company also hold U. S. and Canadian patents for a desk-memorandum device, among other things.
The company's founder and chief officer until his death in 1933 was Herbert Huse Bigelow [16315.2371], a man
of frugal tastes and hard-working habits, who is said to have worn twenty-five dollar suits when he was worth three times a millionaire.

He was born 18 May 1870 in Brookfield, Orange County, Vermont, the son of Celestia (Huse) and Andrew Bigelow. The oldest of three children, he was to lose his father while only four years of age. Some years later, the family moved to Iowa. Herbert received his early education in Vermont and Iowa schools. He worked his way through Grinnell College in Iowa by selling, during his vacations, the book, In Darkest Africa, by Henry Stanley, Review of Reviews magazine, and calendars for a company based in Red Oak, Iowa.

This company had been founded during the 1880's by college chums, Edmond B. Osborne and Norman D. Murphy. They operated a weekly paper at Red Oak and at one point, wanted to run a picture of a projected new court house in their publication. Unable to pay for this costly procedure, as that would use up the entire week's revenue from their paper, Osborne hit on an idea. He outlined to his parruer a plan for printing a wall calendar, surrounding it with advertising of local merchants. About twenty-five businessmen went for the idea and the young advertising calendar pioneers netted $300 on the venture. They put out 1,000 calendars. Their first salesman was none other than Herbert Huse Bigelow. Sensing the future in this field, Murphy and Osborne went on to form companies in Red Oak and Clifton, NJ, before splitting up to establish their separate firms.

In 1894, Bigelow married Nina Penney of Fullerton, Nebraska. where he briefly had an interest in a lumber yard. They were on a honeymoon to the Black Hills in South Dakota, but Bigelow prudently stocked up on calendars to sell along the way.

Shortly after, he met a St. Paul pnnter named Hiram Brown. The two men soon came to a business agreement and in 1896 organized as Brown & Bigelow, with Brown investing $3,000 and Bigelow investing $1,500. In their first year of operation, the firm had a total business of $13,000. Brown was never active in the partnership and died in 1905. Bigelow pumped life into the business through emphasis on quality.

A descendant of George Linton Swift asserts that he was also involved in the founding of Brown & Bigelow. He was well-known in manufacturing circles in the northwest and was listed in charge of all manufacturing for Brown & Bigelow in 1908. George named one of his sons Herbert Bigelow Swift, who in turn had a son, Herbert Bigelow Swift, Jr.

Bigelow's wife, Nina, died in 1897 and he then married Mrs. Frances Gillette, a widow. Her son, Leon, was adopted by Bigelow.

Brown & Bigelow expanded rapidly, constantly seeking larger quarters, until by 1904 it employed over 400 persons. It was shortly after this that Bigelow purchased Quality Park, and erected its modem building.

Other than purchasing a large farm, Bigelow continued to live abstentiously, plowing all the company profits back into the business. In its early days, Brown & Bigelow was a model facility with large areas of glass and light, landscaped grounds and recreational facilities (both indoors and out) for its employees. It is said that Bigelow was a very paternalistic employer and admired Elbert Hubbard, the business man's philosopher, and wished to accomplish what Hubbard had done in his New York plant.

Herbert Bigelow was absolutely opposed to the unionization of any industry, for in his business there was no need of a union to protect the working-man's rights. He was equally outspoken on the subject of income tax. As early as 1905, Bigelow inveighed against taxes on either income or earnings. He considered such taxes an immoral penalty on initiative. Instead, he proposed a tax on what he considered unearned increments, that is, taxes on the property of landholders who merely sit back waiting for development to increase the value of their holdings.

Inevitably, Herbert Bigelow met head-on with the U.S. govenunent, which was having difficulty enforcing its
1913 income tax law. The law was being widely ignored, and in the post Teapot Dome era m the 1920's, the federal government chose to prosecute a few selected businessmen from each geographic area. One of these was Herbert Bigelow, who expected to be fined, but instead was sentenced to three years in prison. He served the minimum eight months at Leavenworth Penitentiary, and it is typical of the man that while he was in prison, he spent his time and money ameliorating the lot of his fellow-prisoners and their families. In particular, he became interested in one Charles Ward.

For many years after Bigelow's release from Leavenworth, the company followed the policy of employing ex-convicts whom they considered worth rehabilitating. Among these was Charles Ward, who rose first to general manager, and eventually became company president after Bigelow's death. Bigelow and Ward owned a cabin on Lake Caribou in northern Minnesota and had a wooden cabin cruiser dubbed the "Dodge Water Car."

As well as Brown & Bigelow, Herbert Bigelow also later owned a large pnnting company called Bigelow Press, which operated both in St. Paul and in South Bend, IN.

In 1933 Bigelow died by accidental drowning in Basswood Lake in Minnesota. The following article
appeared in the South Bend Tribune on 21 September 1933:

Herbert H. Bigelow, Chairman of the Board of the Bigelow Press here and St. Paul, Minn., capitalist, evidently drowned in a northern Minnesota lake after a bitter struggle, according to searchers who found his body.

The bodies of Mr. Bigelow, aged 63, and Mrs. Ralph Mather, 39, also of St. Paul, were recovered late Wednesday from Basswood Lake, 20 miles north of Ely, Minn. Search was continued for Howard Schaeffer, woodsman guide of Ely.

The trio drowncd last Saturday when their canoe, lashed by high wind and waves, overturned while they were returning from a fishng trip into Canada. Mrs. Mather's husband, returning in another canoe, escaped uninjured.

The body of Mr. Bigelow was found about 500 feet from Chicago Island, near the spot where the overturned canoe of the party had been found. Thc news was flashed to Ely from a radio-equipped launch aiding in the search. Basswood Lake is an international body of water between the United States and Canada.

The searchers who found the bodies said it appeared that Mr. Bigelow fought against drowning for some time, inasmuch as he had removed part of the heavy clothing which he wore. The clothing probably was removed after the canoe capsized and while he clung to its side.

The bodies were to be taken to St. Paul today.

A second article appeared in the South Bend Tribune the following day, on 22 September 1933:

Claude J. Jackson, president of Bigelow Press, inc.. of South Bend, will leave for St. Paul, Minn. Friday night to attend the funeral Saturday afternoon of Herbert H. Bigdow, Chairman of the Board of the printing company, who lost his life last Saturday while fishing on Basswood Lake near Ely, Minn.

The funeral service will be held at 2:30 pm. Saturday from the home of R. P. Galloway, treasurer of the Brown & Bigelow Co. of St. Paul.

Mr. Bigelow and two companions were in the fishing boat when it capsized on the lake during a storm last Saturday. His companions who perished with him were Mrs. Ralph Mather, socially prominent of St. Paul, and Howard Schaeffer, a guide from Ely, Minn.

The bodies of Mr. Bigelow and Mrs. Mather were recovered from the lake on Wednesdav but according to reports received by Mr. Jackson from St. Paul Friday morning, the body of Schaeffer has not yet been found.

Mr. Bigelow went north for a rest and a vacation two weeks ago accompanied by Mr. and Mrs. Mather. Mr. Mather was in another boat when the mishap overtook the Bigelow boat.

Mr. Bigelow was a St. Paul millionaire who held extensive investments in the printing business both in St. Paul and South Bend. He became interested in the printing business here three years ago and was a frequent visitor in this city.

Herbert Bigelow left an estate of three million dollars. One-third went to his sister, Helen (Mrs. Robert Porter Galloway), whose husband had just joined Brown & Bigelow, coming from National Cash Register Company. One-third, plus the farm, went to Charles Ward. The remaining third was divided between Leon Bigelow and Leon's son, Herbert Bigelow II (the latter died in a car accident at age 40). There were numerous other bequests, both large and small, to employees and relatives, including Herbert's sister, Gertrude, who never married. The sole family survivor in 1974 was Helen's son, Herbert Galloway, a plastics manufacturer.

Early in 1934, Bigelow's adopted son, Leon, died and in August of that same vcar. Herbert's wife, Frances, died after a long illness.

Ward's presidency of the company saw much increase of business volume because of the end of the Great Depression, and the beginning of post-war prosperity. Little improvement, however, was made in the physical plant during Ward's lifetime, a period which saw great technological changes in the printing industry.

Shortly after Ward's death in 1959, Brown & Bigelow became part of a conglomerate, and was a subsidiary of Saxon Industries. At its height, it employed five thousand employees

The firm still operates today as Brown & Bigelow with corporate headquarters at 345 Plato Blvd., East St. Paul, MN.

rodbigelow@netzero.net
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