Education
She earned a Doctor of Philosophy in zoology from Cornell in 1929.
She earned a Doctor of Philosophy in zoology from Cornell in 1929.
They had five children, all of whom were born between 1918 and 1927. Most of her scholarly work dealt with the history of ornithology in North America before 1830. She was chiefly responsible for bringing long-overdue attention to the work of John Abbot, an early naturalist who painted in the late 1700s many of the birds of the southern United States, and thanks to her efforts, he was honored in a ceremony in Savannah, Georgia, in 1957, when Mistress
Allen unveiled a monument to his memory.
She was also intensely interested in the work of Mark Catesby and Alexander Wilson, and gained greater recognition for their work than had hitherto been given, without disparaging the work of their contemporaries. According to Alan Feduccia, the first major archival study of Mark Catesby"s life was Elsa Allen"s 1937 article in the The Auk.
Her unpublished work includes a biographical study of John Abbot, a novel "The Story of Lalla", her diaries from 1912 to 1966, and "Minerva"s Daughter".