Person

Allen, J. A. (Joel Asaph), 1838-1921

1838-1921

Joel Asaph Allen was born on July 19, 1838, in Springfield, Massachusetts.

He was an American zoologist, mammalogist, and ornithologist. He began studying and collecting specimens of natural history early in life. However, he had to sell his large collection to attend the Wilbraham & Monson Academy in 1861. The next year, he transferred to Harvard University, where he studied under Louis Agassiz (1807-1873) at Harvard's Museum of Comparative Zoology and became a staff member in 1871. Allen participated in the 1865-1866 Thayer Expedition to Brazil where he collected bird and mammal skins, geological specimens, fishes, reptiles, and other vertebrates. He also took part in several U.S. expeditions, collecting, surveying, and making scientific observations. At The American Museum of Natural History (AMNH), Allen increasingly focused on acquiring, researching, and writing, as well as editorial work. He cataloged thousands of specimens of birds and mammals in the museum's collections and provided editorial supervision for the Bulletin of the AMNH and the Memoirs of the AMNH. He was the first president of the American Ornithologists' Union for seven years from its formation in 1883 and was editor of the journal The Auk for 27 years. In 1871, he was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 1885, he was appointed as the first curator of birds and mammals at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, later becoming the first head of the museum's Department of Ornithology. He was also a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Philosophical Society.

In 1874, he married Mary Manning Cleveland (1846–1879) and, in 1886, he remarried Susan A. Taft (1843–). He died on August 29, 1921, in Cornwall, New York.