Educated at Harvard College where he graduated in 1826, Hildreth then studied law at Newburyport where he was admitted to the bar in 1830. He helped to found the Boston Atlas newspaper in 1832 which ran until 1857. In 1834, he published The Slave: or Memoir of Archy Moore, said to be the first anti-slavery novel and was extremely popular. He was an advocate of a free banking system and, to that end, published Banks, Banking and Paper Currencies in 1837. Suffering from ill health, he moved to British Guiana in 1840 where he lived for three years. In 1849, he published History of the United States which ran to six volumes, completed in 1852, and which is his best work. In 1857, he began working for the New York Tribune, but, continuing to suffer from poor health, he was forced to retire in 1860. In 1861, he was appointed U.S. Consul at Trieste where he served until 1865, when he resigned and moved to Florence. His other works include Theory of Morals (1844, Theory of Politics (1853), Despotism in America (1854), Japan As It Was and Is (1855) and Lives of Atrocious Judges (1856). |
