Elizabeth Kendall

Elizabeth Kendall was an American historian, teacher, and traveller who published under the fuller name Elizabeth Kimball Kendall. A Wayfarer in China records her 1911 journey through western China and Mongolia during the final months before the revolution. Houghton Mifflin issued the travel narrative in 1913 with the subtitle Impressions of a Trip Across West China and Mongolia. Kendall entered Yunnan from Tonking, travelled north through mountainous country toward Chengdu, continued to the Yangtze and the Great Wall, and crossed the Mongolian grasslands and Gobi before reaching the Siberian railway. She writes closely about roads, landscapes, transport, cities, and the people who made the journey possible, while acknowledging that her observations were first impressions. Kendall taught history and political science at Wellesley College, where archival records preserve her correspondence, photographs, and manuscripts. Her academic background gives the narrative a strong interest in geography, institutions, and historical change, while its route keeps the account grounded in the practical details of travel.