Theodore Dwight Weld
Theodore Dwight Weld (
1803–
1895), the author of
American Slavery As It Is: Testimony of a Thousand Witnesses, was an
American abolitionist. He was born in
Hampton, Connecticut, where he lived until 1825 when his family moved to upstate
New York. He entered Hamilton College, where he became the disciple of
Charles Finney, a famous evangelist. He married
Angelina Emily Grimke in 1838. From 1836 to 1840, Weld worked as the editor of the
Emancipator. In 1839, he published
American Slavery As It Is: Testimony of a Thousand Witnesses, on which
Harriet Beecher Stowe partly based
Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Weld used pen names for all of his writings, which many scholars believe to be the reason that he is not as well known as other abolitionists such as
William Lloyd Garrison or
Arthur Tappan.
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