Elizur Wright

Elizur Wright
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Elizur Wright (12 February 1804 – 22 November 1885) was an American mathematician and abolitionist. He is sometimes described as the "father of life insurance" in the United States. He is also sometimes called the "father of insurance regulation", as he campaigned that life insurance companies must keep reserves, provide surrender values, and served as an insurance commissioner for the State of Massachusetts.

Wright was born in South Canaan, Connecticut, as part of a devout Christian family who held anti-slavery beliefs and instilled in him a strict moral character. His father, also named Elizur (1762-1845), graduated at Yale in 1781, and was known for his mathematical learning and devotion to the Calvinist faith. In 1810 the family moved to Tallmadge, Ohio, and the younger Elizur worked on the farm and attended an academy that was conducted by his father. The famous abolitionist John Brown attended the Academy in Tallmadge with Elizur. His home was often the refuge for fugitive slaves.

In 1826, the younger Wright graduated from Yale and began to teach: first for two years in Groton, Massachusetts, then at Hudson, Ohio, as a mathematics and natural philosophy professor at Western Reserve College (1829-1833). It was during this time that Wright first encountered the writings of William Lloyd Garrison. Garrison's pamphlet, "Thoughts on African Colonization," persuaded Wright to believe that slavery should immediately be abolished, and that the American Colonization Society's effort to deport free blacks to an African colony was immoral and ineffective.

Along with Lewis Tappan, Arthur Tappan, Theodore Weld, James Birney, and other like-minded individuals, Wright founded the American Anti-Slavery Society at a convention in Philadelphia in December 1833, the year Wright had moved to New York City. Wright became the national secretary of the organization for five years. At this time, the American Anti-Slavery Society espoused the immediate abolition of slavery, called for an end to all racial prejudice and equality for all. To effect this change, members practiced a policy of "moral suasion," an appeal to people's ethics in an attempt to get them to embrace abolitionism and renounce slavery as sinful.

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