Robert W. (Robert Wells) Rogers

Project Gutenberg lists Robert W. Rogers as Robert Wells Rogers, born in 1873, and credits him with The United Seas. That work presents the opening of the Panama Canal as more than an engineering feat, treating it as a symbol of international contact, cooperation, and peace.

Available genealogical records identify him as Robert Wells Rogers (1873–1954), born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and later associated with Anaconda, Montana. A Find a Grave memorial also names him Rev. Robert Wells Rogers, which suggests he was known as a clergyman as well as a writer.

Very little biographical material about Rogers appears to survive online, so the picture is necessarily partial. What does remain points to an author interested in large civic and moral ideas, writing in a hopeful, public-minded style that fit the ambitions of his era.