Arthur Augustus Allen (28 December 1885 – 17 January 1964) was an American professor of

ornithology Ornithology, from Ancient Greek ὄρνις (''órnis''), meaning "bird", and -logy from λόγος (''lógos''), meaning "study", is a branch of zoology dedicated to the study of birds. Several aspects of ornithology differ from related discip ...

Cornell University Cornell University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university based in Ithaca, New York, United States. The university was co-founded by American philanthropist Ezra Cornell and historian and educator Andrew Dickson W ...

. '' Smithsonian'' has credited him for the transition of ornithology from being focused on killing and collecting birds, to being focused on observing and protecting them.The Hero Who Convinced His Fellow Ornithologists of the Obvious: Stop Shooting Rare Birds and Watch Them Instead
by Tim Gallagher; in '' Smithsonian''; December 2024 issue; retrieved November 25, 2024

Early life and education

Allen was born in

Buffalo, New York Buffalo is a Administrative divisions of New York (state), city in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York and county seat of Erie County, New York, Erie County. It lies in Western New York at the eastern end of Lake Erie, at the head of ...

, the son of Daniel Williams Allen and Anna née Moore. He studied at

, where he obtained his Bachelor of Arts in 1907, his Master of Arts in 1908 and his Ph.D. in 1911. His thesis is entitled "The Red-Winged Blackbird: A Study in the Ecology of a Cattail Marsh". ArthurAAllenObserving

Career

Fieldwork

From 1911 to 1912 he went on an expedition to

Colombia Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country primarily located in South America with Insular region of Colombia, insular regions in North America. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Caribbean Sea to the north, Venezuel ...

. In 1935 Allen led an expedition to the Singer Tract in Louisiana to search for

ivory-billed woodpecker The ivory-billed woodpecker (''Campephilus principalis'') is a woodpecker native to the Southern United States and Cuba. Habitat destruction and hunting have reduced populations so severely that the last universally accepted sighting in the Uni ...

s. They did discover some, in what was to turn out to be the last documented, definite sighting, including photographs and audio. In the early 2000s there was a flurry of excitement at possible sightings in the same region, but controversy surrounds how sure the sightings were. Allen published an ornithological history in 1933 under the title ''Fifty Years' Progress of American Ornithology, 1883–1933''. He was dedicated to promoting the study of birds to a wide audience, in his books, films and public lectures. His ''Book of Bird Life'' (1930, reissued in 1961) was a well-written introduction to ornithology for its time. He founded the

Wildlife Society The Wildlife Society (TWS) is an international non-profit association involved in wildlife stewardship through science and education. The Wildlife Society works to improve wildlife conservation in North America by advancing the science of wildlif ...

in 1936, leading the organization from 1938 to 1939. After retiring from his position at Cornell, he was a public lecturer for the

National Audubon Society The National Audubon Society (Audubon; ) is an American non-profit environmental organization dedicated to conservation of birds and their habitats. Located in the United States and incorporated in 1905, Audubon is one of the oldest of such orga ...

from 1953 to 1959.

Cornell University

From 1912 to 1916, Allen he was appointed an instructor in zoology at Cornell. He an assistant professor in 1916, and a professor in 1926. He continued his career at Cornell until his retirement in 1953. It has been estimated that over 10,000 students took his courses, including over 100 doctoral students, at a time when Cornell was the only institution to offer advanced degrees in ornithology. He worked on what eventually became the independent

Cornell Lab of Ornithology The Cornell Lab of Ornithology is a member-supported unit of Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, which studies birds and other wildlife. It is housed in the Imogene Powers Johnson Center for Birds and Biodiversity in Sapsucker Woods Sanctuar ...

in 1955. Allen also conducted pioneering studies on recording bird songs. In 1929, he and Peter Paul Kellogg took the first sound recordings of wild birds, in a park in

Ithaca Ithaca most commonly refers to: *Homer's Ithaca, an island featured in Homer's ''Odyssey'' *Ithaca (island), an island in Greece, possibly Homer's Ithaca *Ithaca, New York, a city, and home of Cornell University and Ithaca College Ithaca, Ithaka ...

. This would be the first of many experiments in

field recording Field recording is the production of audio recordings outside recording studios, and the term applies to recordings of both natural and human-produced sounds. It can also include the recording of electromagnetic fields or vibrations using diff ...

. In 1932, Allen and Kellogg filmed and made sound recordings of a male ruffled grouse drumming. It was the first ornithological study to use film and recorded sound, and proved that the grouse produces the drumming sound not by hitting itself, but by "drumming" on the air. Albert R. Brand, one of Allen's graduate students, created the first record album of bird songs (for the

phonograph A phonograph, later called a gramophone, and since the 1940s a record player, or more recently a turntable, is a device for the mechanical and analogue reproduction of sound. The sound vibration Waveform, waveforms are recorded as correspond ...

) in 1932. Allen would go on to release five bird song albums with Kellogg, and the duo would also release an album of frog calls in 1953. Many of Allen's recordings are still available on the

Macaulay Library The Macaulay Library is the world's largest archive of animal media. It includes more than 71 million photographs, 2.6 million audio recordings, and over three hundred thousand videos covering 96 percent of the world's bird species. There are an ev ...

website.

Personal life

Allen married fellow Cornell alum and ornithologist Elsa Guerdrum in 1913. They had five children.

Works

Albums

All were recorded with Peter Paul Kellogg and released through Cornell University Records. * ''Voices of the Night: The Calls of 34 Frogs and Toads of America.'' 1953. * ''Songbirds of America.'' 1954. * ''American Bird Songs: Volume One.'' 1955. * ''American Bird Songs: Volume Two.'' 1955. * ''Bird Songs in Your Garden.'' 1961.

Books

* ''Book of Bird Life.'' 1931. New York: D. Van Nostrand Company. * ''American Bird Biographies.'' 1935. Ithaca, New York: Comstock Publishing Company. * ''The Golden Plover and Other Birds.'' 1939. Ithaca, New York: Comstock Publishing Company.

References

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External links

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Arthur A. Allen
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Recordings made by Allen
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Allen, Arthur A. 1885 births 1964 deaths American ornithologists Scientists from Buffalo, New York Scientists from Ithaca, New York Cornell University alumni Cornell University faculty 20th-century American zoologists