KIRKUS REVIEW
So little is known, generally speaking, of Theodore Weld, and the part he played in the cause of emancipation, that- after reading this definitive biography- I checked reference after reference (Sandburg, Nevins, Freeman, etc.) seeking explanation of his anonymity. He was, from youth, a reformer, whether preaching the doctrine of manual labor institutions, evangelical religion, equality of sexes. But the cause of the Negro became his great cause, fired first by a retired English army officer- then by Garrison (though he balked at some of Garrison's extremes), until he became the spearhead of the movement in the west, organizer, strategist, as well as lecturer. Recurrent trouble with his throat enforced abandonment of the lecture platform, and he spent years as a school teacher. His marriage was an extraordinary one -- his wife, after a strange courtship, a Southern militant feminist and abolitionist, a convert to Quakerism. Together they not only taught and preached their faith in the movement, but- at the end of their lives- lived it in educating Angelina's nephews, Negro sons of her own brother. Interesting as a fresh slant on a little known factor in the cause of the emancipation of the Negro, though not inspired writing.