Thomas Wentworth Higginson

Born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Thomas Wentworth Higginson was an American minister, writer, and public intellectual whose career touched many corners of 19th-century life. He studied at Harvard and Harvard Divinity School, became a Unitarian minister, and soon gained a reputation as a forceful speaker and essayist.

Higginson was deeply involved in the antislavery movement and other reform causes, including women's rights. During the Civil War, he served as colonel of the 1st South Carolina Volunteers, a pioneering regiment of formerly enslaved men that later became part of the United States Colored Troops. His wartime experiences later shaped some of his best-known nonfiction.

He wrote widely for magazines and books, producing essays, memoir, history, and biography. Many readers know him through his long correspondence with Emily Dickinson and his role in helping bring her poems into print after her death. That connection kept his name alive, but it reflects only part of a life spent arguing, writing, and organizing in the service of reform.