author
John Bigelow
1817–1911
A newspaperman, diplomat, and public thinker, he moved easily between the worlds of politics, publishing, and international affairs. Best remembered for his Civil War service in Paris and his work on Benjamin Franklin’s writings, he spent decades shaping public life in New York and beyond.
1 Audiobook
Franklin: A Sketch
by John Bigelow
About the author
Born in New York in 1817, John Bigelow built an unusually varied career as a lawyer, journalist, editor, author, and diplomat. He became a co-owner and managing editor of the New York Evening Post, where he worked closely with poet and editor William Cullen Bryant and took an active interest in reform politics.
During the American Civil War, he served in Paris as U.S. consul and later minister to France. He is widely credited with helping block the delivery of warships being built for the Confederacy, an effort that strengthened the Union cause at a delicate moment in international diplomacy.
Bigelow also had a long literary and historical legacy. He edited important editions of Benjamin Franklin’s writings and is especially associated with bringing Franklin’s autobiography to a wider readership. Over a long public life that lasted into the early twentieth century, he remained involved in civic and cultural institutions in New York, including the early development of what became the New York Public Library.