 In June 1891, after Anderson had dropped out of Harvard Law School, his father interceded with his 1858 Harvard classmate Robert Todd Lincoln, son of President Abraham Lincoln, who was then serving as the U.S. minister to the Court of St. James's in London.Lincoln offered Anderson the job of second secretary of the American legation in London.In 1894, after three years in London, Anderson was appointed first secretary of the American embassy in Rome and then, in 1897, served for a several months as "chargé d'affaires", until he resigned to return to the U.S. for his wedding to Isabel Weld Perkins.