Mary Eleanor Hunt Spear (March 4, 1897 – January 22, 1986) was an American data visualization specialist, graphic analyst and author, who pioneered development of the bar chart and box plot.

[3][4] Spear worked as a graphic analyst for many United States Federal Government agencies[5] between the 1920s and the 1960s, including for the Internal Revenue Service and the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

She also explained the roles needed for successful development and presentation of charts: a graphic analyst, a draftsman, and a communicator.

[11] Reviewers of her first book noted approvingly Spear's inclusion of tips about presenting data in graphic form on television.

[18] It contained a chapter titled, "Cheating by Charting", on how not to mislead an audience,[18] but made no reference to the growing field of plotting data by computer.