Theodore Dwight Weld

Theodore Dwight Weld rivals fellow abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison as the leading figure in the American antislavery movement. Weld helped found the American Anti-Slavery Society, directing its New York Office and serving as editor of the society’s newspaper the Emancipator from 1836 to 1840. He also directed the national campaign for sending antislavery petitions to Congress.

Though not published under his own name, Weld’s most famous book is American Slavery as It Is, a book that Weld wrote and edited with his wife, Angelina Grimké, and sister-in-law, Sarah Grimké. Published in 1839, American Slavery as It Is sold thousands of copies, and Harriet Beecher Stowe partly based her antislavery novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin on it. It is considered one of the most influential publications of the antislavery movement. The book is primarily a compilation...