Elsa Guerdrum Allen

Elsa Guerdrum Allen (19 May 1888, Washington, D.C. – 29 January 1969, Utica, New York) was an American ornithologist, lecturer, author and historian of ornithology, known for her 1951 book ''The History of American Ornithology Before Audubon''. Most of her scholarly work dealt with the history of ornithology in North America before 1830.

Education and Personal Life

Elsa Guerdrum was born on 19 May 1888. She was of Scandinavian descent, with her surname an Anglicized version of the Swedish name Gjerdrum.

She received her B.S. from Cornell University in 1912. In August 1913, she married the ornithologist Arthur A. Allen, whom she usually accompanied on his expeditions. The couple had five children between 1918 and 1927, one of whom proceeded Elsa in death. She earned a Ph.D. in zoology from Cornell in 1929, writing her thesis on chipmunks. She died on January 29, 1969.

Career

Allen worked at Cornell University's Fuertes Library for several years, and was a research collaborator at the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology.

Allen is credited with rediscovering and popularizing the work of early naturalist John Abbot, to the point that one critic referred to Abbot as Allen's "peculiar province". In 1957, a ceremony in Savannah, Georgia was held in his honor, with Allen present, that concluded in her dedicating a monument in his memory. She also promoted the works of Alexander Wilson and Mark Catesby; according to Alan Feduccia, the first major archival study of Mark Catesby's life was Elsa Allen's 1937 article in ''The Auk''. Allen also made several recordings of bird calls.

She received a grant from the National Academy of Sciences to write a biographical study of John Abbott, but died before it could be completed. Other unpublished works include ''The Story of Lalla,'' a novel inspired by her Scandinavian roots, and "Minerva's Daughter", a story she had wanted to publish in the Women's Press. These works, as well as Allen's diaries, photographs, and other papers, are held in the Cornell University Library's Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections.Guide to the Elsa Guerdrum Allen Papers, 1885–1976, Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library
/ref>

Works

Articles

*
*
* (See Jacques le Moyne.)
* (See Nicolas Denys.)
*
*
*

Books

*
* ''The History of American Ornithology before Audubon''. University of Pennsylvania Press. 1951; 207 pp, 55 figs.

References

External Links

Elsa G. Allen's recordings
at Macaulay Library

{{DEFAULTSORT:Allen, Elsa Guerdrum
1888 births
1969 deaths
American ornithologists
American women ornithologists
Cornell University alumni
20th-century American zoologists