Herbert Lawrence Bridgman

Background

Herbert Lawrence Bridgman was born on May 30, 1844 in Amherst, Massachussets, the son of Richard Baxter and Mary (Nutting) Bridgman.

Education

After finishing the common schools Herbert entered Amherst College, from which he graduated in 1866. He had done some apprentice work at journalism during his last two years in college, and he now made it his vocation.

Career

Herbert Bridgman began on the Springfield Republican, of which he became city editor, and he later worked for the Associated Press and on Frank Leslie's, the Press, and the Tribune of New York. In 1887 he became business manager of the Brooklyn Standard Union, a place he retained until his death.

In 1894, following the discoverer's return to the Arctic the previous year, he accompanied the Falcon relief expedition, which provisioned Peary and brought back Mrs. Peary and their infant daughter, born in the Far North. Three years later, for a brief diversion from the Arctic field, he scaled, with Professor Libby, the Mesa Encantada, in New Mexico.

In 1899 he led the Diana relief expedition to the North, and on his return organized the Peary Arctic Club, which gave financial aid to the discoverer in all his subsequent work. Two years later, in the Erik, he again brought relief to Peary.

In 1904 he turned to Africa, going to the headwaters of the Nile, penetrating to the Congo and returning by the same route--a journey narrated in his book, The Sudan: Africa from Sea to Center, published the following year. To the great cape at the northeast extremity of Greenland Peary gave the name of his friend, and it was to him that the discoverer sent his code message, received in Brooklyn, September 6, 1909, announcing the discovery of the Pole.

Immediately on receiving further information from Peary, Bridgman took a leading part in exposing the pretensions of Dr. Cook. In 1913 he was again a delegate to an international gathering of explorers in Europe and during the year made an extended tour through the Balkans.

In 1923 he journeyed through the Panama Canal to California and Hawaii. A youthful octogenarian, he set out on July 2, 1924, for a vacation on the cruise of the New York State School-ship Newport, commanded by Captain Felix Riesenberg. The journey carried him to England, the Belgian battlefields, Spain, and Madeira.

On an early morning of the homeward voyage he was suddenly stricken with cerebral hemorrhage, from which he died. The body was brought to Brooklyn and buried, October 1, with appropriate ceremonies, in Greenwood Cemetery.

Achievements

• Bridgman was one of the founders of the American Newspaper Publishers Association, of which he was president for three terms, and was for one term chairman of the New York Publishers Association. To the end he never forgot to be a reporter; and on the sea voyage from which he was not to return alive he sent to his newspaper a round dozen of long descriptive letters. He is most widely known as an explorer and a patron of exploration, particularly of the Arctic. In 1906 and 1908 he was a delegate from various American societies to international gatherings of explorers in Europe. In 1915 he was made president of the department of geography of the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences, and two years later a regent of the state university.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Amherst College. Chronicles of the Class of 1866

    ( This work has been selected by scholars as being cultur...)

  • Amherst College. Chronicles of the Class of 1866

    ( This work has been selected by scholars as being cultur...)

  • Amherst College: Chronicles of the Class of 1866. Second Series

    (Leopold is delighted to publish this classic book as part...)

  • Amherst College. Chronicles of the Class of 1866. Third Series

    (Leopold is delighted to publish this classic book as part...)

Politics

Bridgman began on the Springfield Republican, of which he became city editor, and he later worked for the Associated Press and on Frank Leslie's, the Press, and the Tribune of New York.

Views

He remained a journalist as well as a publisher; usually he had an unsigned editorial in the Sunday issue of his newspapers, and always he was a keen and an assiduous gatherer of news.

Membership

Bridgman was a member of the American Newspaper Publishers Association and of the New York Publishers Association.

Personality

Bridgman was a man of sturdy physique, with the chest and shoulders of an athlete. His familiar photograph shows a large head with a bald and somewhat peaked crown, a high forehead, keen eyes in which may well have "always lurked, " as one writes, "a whimsical smile, " and a flowing mustache.

He was an indefatigable worker and is said never to have wasted a moment. He had amazingly wide interests and managed somehow to apportion his time so as to serve them all.

Quotes from others about the person

• An associate testifies that "he was a specialist on finding the elusive item in the least likely place, " and that his contributions, jotted down in an atrocious hand, "probably worse than Greeley's, " on any scrap of paper that chanced to be near, were a feature of the daily grist of copy.
  
  "Had he lived in a period when there were greater undiscovered spaces, " said the New York Times, "he would have been a Magellan or a Frobisher. . His last voyage, in company with youth, is a fit symbol of the whole life of this man who, with uncommon modesty, great geniality and an adventurous courage, illustrated to youth the best that one generation has to give to the next. "

Connections

Bridgman was twice married: in 1868 to Melia Newhall, who died in 1884, and in 1887, to Helen Bartlett, of New York, a writer, who survived him.

Father:

Richard Baxter Bridgman

Mother:

Mary (Nutting) Bridgman

1st wife:

Melia Newhall

2nd wife:

Helen Bartlett

associate:

Robert E. Peary

Bridgman became closely associated with Robert E. Peary in 1892 and thereafter was his staunch supporter.