W. Shaw Warren (1831-1911) was born in Rumsford, Maine, and died in Holliston, Massachusetts. Originally a farmer, Warren learned photography in Portland, Maine, and subsequently became an ambrotypist and photographer. He married Sarah Ann "Anna" Colewell Gertridge in Boston in 1856, and they lived first in Chelsea, Massachusetts, and then in Rumsford, Maine, before settling in Boston. After his first wife's death, he married Eliza Ann Gunnison in Boston in 1900. Warren established his first photography studio in Boston in 1862, and between then and the early 1900s he became a well-known and prolific photographer. He was especially known for his cabinet cards and cartes de visite. Warren first photographed Mary Baker Eddy in about 1884, and the resulting photograph was in high demand and widely circulated among Eddy's students. Around early 1886 he photographed Eddy again, but according to a June 1886 letter from Warren to Eddy, she chose not to have those photographs produced.

See more letters.