Albert Bigelow Papers

Albert S. Bigelow (1906- ) an artist, architect, former Navy commander, and Quaker, was captain of the Golden Rule, a thirty foot ketch which he attempted to sail into the Eniwetok Proving Grounds, the U.S. nuclear test site in the Marshall Islands of the Pacific. Bigelow and his crew sailed from San Pedro, California, in February 1958. At the time of Golden Rule's departure, it was legal to sail into the test site zone. While the small boat was under sail to Hawaii, however, the Atomic Energy Commission issued a regulation making it a crime for a U.S. citizen to sail into the Eniwetok Proving Grounds. In Hawaii, Bigelow and his crew were summoned to court. At this hearing, the U.S. government was granted a temporary injunction: if Golden Rule tried to sail to the testing site, the action would be considered in criminal contempt of court. Twice, on May 1 and again on June 4, Golden Rule tried to sail from the Honolulu harbor, but both times it was stopped soon after departure. Bigelow was arrested ten minutes before the second attempt; his crewmates, James Peck, George Willoughby, William R. Huntington, and Orion W. Sherwood, were arrested later the same day while under sail, and all were sentenced to sixty days in the Honolulu jail. The trip was sponsored by the Committee for Non-Violent Action Against Nuclear Weapons, the antecedent organization of the Committee for Non-Violent Action (CNVA). The yacht Phoenix, skippered by Earle and Barbara Leonard Reynolds, made the journey to the Eniwetok Proving Grounds later that same year, resulting in the arrest and trial of Earle Reynolds. His conviction was finally overturned in l961.

Albert Bigelow also took part in other peace demonstrations and civil rights actions described in his papers. He and his wife Sylvia resided in Cos Cob, Connecticut.