Mabel Washbourne Anderson


Mabel Washbourne Anderson was an American writer and educator based in Oklahoma. She wrote biographies, poetry, and fiction, mostly focused on Cherokee history and culture.

Early life and education

Washbourne was born in Russellville, Arkansas, and raised in Indian Territory, the daughter of Josiah Woodward Washbourne and Susan Catherine Ridge Washbourne. Her father was white; her paternal grandfather, Cephas Washburn, was a white missionary from Vermont who worked in Cherokee communities in Arkansas and Oklahoma. Her maternal grandfather, John Ridge, was a Cherokee leader, as was his father, Major Ridge. Both of Washbourne's parents died in 1871. She graduated from the Cherokee Female Seminary in Tahlequah in 1883.

Career and publications

Anderson taught school in Oklahoma for many years, and wrote stories and poems for magazines and newspapers. She was a member of the Sequoyah Literary Society and the United Daughters of the Confederacy. Eleanor Roosevelt mentioned visiting with Anderson in a 1937 My Day column, saying "I enjoyed talking to her about Cherokee history and am looking forward to reading the little book she left with me."
  • "From Eureka Springs"
  • "An Osage Niobe"
  • "Nowita, the Sweet Singer"
  • "Difficulties of the Five Tribes"
  • "Echo of a Sermon"
  • "Some of the Children of Charles Dickens' Fancy"
  • "Love of the Beautiful"
  • "Edward Pason Washbourne"
  • "United Daughters of the Confederacy"
  • "Father of his Country"
  • "Old Fort Gibson on the Grand"
  • "The Southern Artist"
  • "Joe Jamison's Sacrifice"
  • "The Cherokee Poet and 'Mount Shasta'
  • "The Story of Nowita"
  • "Easter and Nature in Happy Harmony"
  • The life of General Stand Watie
  • "General Stand Watie"
  • "Old Fort Gibson"

Personal life and legacy

Washbourne married John Carlton Anderson in 1891. They had two daughters, Gladys and Helen. She died in 1949, at the age of 86, in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Writing by Anderson was included in the collection Native American Writing in the Southeast: An Anthology !875–1935, in Changing is not Vanishing: A Collection of American Indian Poetry to 1930, and in Nina Baym's Women Writers of the American West, 1833–1927.