Mary Annette Anderson

Mary Annette Anderson (July 27, 1874 – May 2, 1922) was an American professor of grammar and history and the first African American woman elected to Phi Beta Kappa.

Mary Annette Anderson
Anderson c. 1899
Born	(1874-07-27)July 27, 1874 Shoreham, Vermont, U.S.
Died	May 2, 1922(1922-05-02) (aged 47) Shoreham, Vermont
Alma mater	Middlebury College (B.S.)
Occupation	Professor
Employer	Howard University
Spouse	Walter Lucius Smith
Relatives	William J. Anderson (brother)

Anderson was born in Shoreham, Vermont, to William and Philomine (Langlois) Anderson. Her father, a farmer, was a freed slave originally from Virginia, and her mother was a Canadian immigrant of French and Native American ancestry.[1] Her younger brother, William John Anderson Jr., became the second African American to serve in the Vermont General Assembly.[2] Anderson attended the Northfield School for Young Ladies in Northfield, Massachusetts, and entered Middlebury College in 1895. She graduated in 1899 as valedictorian, becoming the first African American woman elected to Phi Beta Kappa.[3]

After graduation, Anderson taught for a year at Straight University in New Orleans before being appointed a professor of English grammar and history at Howard University. She taught at Howard for seven years before marrying Walter Lucius Smith, principal of Paul Laurence Dunbar School in Washington, D.C., on August 7, 1907, and gave up teaching. She and her husband bought a summer home in Shoreham in 1919.[4]

She died on May 2, 1922, after a short illness and is buried in Shoreham's Lake View Cemetery.[5]