Mary E. (Mary Evarts) Anderson

Born in Roxbury, Massachusetts, in 1838, Mary E. Anderson — also identified in library and archival records as Mary Evarts Anderson — wrote Scenes in the Hawaiian Islands and California, a travel narrative published in 1865.

Archival records note that she was the daughter of Reverend Rufus Anderson and Eliza Hill Anderson. Yale’s archival entry also records that she later married Reverend George Edward Street in 1865.

Though not widely known today, her surviving book gives readers a firsthand glimpse of 19th-century travel in the Pacific world and the American West, which is why her writing still appears in major digital library collections.