Mary Newton Stanard was an American historian and biographer who dedicated her career to documenting the history of Virginia. Born in Westmoreland County to John Brockenbrough Newton and Roberta Page Williamson, she received her early education locally before graduating from the Leache-Wood School in Norfolk. In 1900, she married William Glover Stanard, the corresponding secretary of the Virginia Historical Society, and settled in Richmond, where she would spend the remainder of her life.
Stanard's career as a published historian began in 1902 when she co-authored The Colonial Virginia Register with her husband. She established herself as an independent scholar in 1907 with the publication of her first solo work, The Story of Bacon's Rebellion. Over the following decades, she wrote and edited numerous volumes exploring Virginia's colonial and cultural past, establishing herself as a prominent authority on the state's history.
In addition to her historical surveys, Stanard wrote several notable biographies, including studies of her father (Bishop Newton), the jurist John Marshall, and the writer Edgar Allan Poe. Beyond her writing, she was deeply involved in historic preservation and civic organizations. She served as the historian for the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities, vice-president of the Virginia chapter of the Colonial Dames of America, and was an active member of the Virginia War History Commission and the Edgar Allan Poe Shrine.
