Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography/Weld, Theodore Dwight

WELD, Theodore Dwight, reformer, b. in Hampton, Conn., 23 Nov., 1803. He entered Phillips Andover academy in 1819, but was not graduated, on account of failing eyesight. In 1830 he became general agent of the Society for the promotion of manual labor in literary institutions, publishing afterward a valuable report (New York, 1833). He entered Lane theological seminary, Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1833, but left that institution on the suppression of the Anti-slavery society of the seminary by the trustees. Mr. Weld then became well known as an anti-slavery lecturer, but in 1836 he lost his voice, and was appointed by the American anti-slavery society editor of its books and pamphlets. In 1841-'3 he labored in Washington in aid of the anti-slavery members of congress, and in 1854 he established at Eagleswood, N. J., a school in which he received pupils irrespective of sex and color. In 1864 he removed to Hyde Park, near Boston, and devoted himself to teaching and lecturing. Mr. Weld is the author of many pamphlets, and of “The Power of Congress over the District of Columbia” (New York, 1837); “The Bible against Slavery” (1837); “American Slavery as it Is: Testimony of a Thousand Witnesses” (1839); and “Slavery and the Internal Slave Trade in the United States” (London, 1841). — His wife, Angelina Emily Grimké, reformer, b. in Charleston, S. C., 20 Feb., 1805, is the daughter of Judge John F. Grimké, of South Carolina, but in 1828, with her sister, Sarah M. Grimke (q. v.), she joined the Society of Friends in Philadelphia, afterward emancipating the slaves that she inherited from her parents in 1836. She was the author of an “Appeal to the Christian Women of the South,” which was republished in England with an introduction by George Thompson, and was associated with her sister in delivering public addresses under the auspices of the American anti-slavery society, winning a reputation for eloquence. The controversy that the appearance of the sisters as public speakers caused was the beginning of the woman's rights agitation in this country. She married Mr. Weld on 14 May, 1838, and was afterward associated with him in educational and reformatory work. Besides the work noticed above, she wrote “Letters to Catherine E. Beecher,” a review of the slavery question (Boston, 1837).