[1] He is best known for his 1900 novel Quincy Adams Sawyer, which became successful largely due to a big marketing campaign, and was adapted for the stage and silent film.

As a young child, Pidgin was rendered lame by an accident to his hip, and he was also partially blind for a number of years.

[10][11][12][13][14][15] The book was adapted to silent films of the same name in 1912 (by Puritan Special Features Company, of which little is known),[16] and again in 1922 starring John Bowers, Blanche Sweet, Lon Chaney, and Barbara La Marr.

[17] Pidgin's 1902 novel The Climax: or, What Might Have Been: A Romance of the Great Republic envisioned an alternate history where Aaron Burr did not kill Alexander Hamilton, and later became president.

[20] In 1916, Pidgin filed a patent application to display dialogue in silent films, proposing that actors inflate balloons or party favor-like objects with text on them to recreate the act of speaking.