Penelope Johnson Allen “Family Scrapbook.” (scrapbooks)

The original scrapbooks were compiled by Penelope Johnson Allen. These were photocopied and bound in 4 alphabetical volumes available on library shelves. Additional photocopy is in boxes with the original volumes, which are quite fragile. Penelope Johnson Allen (1886-1985) was a native of Chattanooga, Tenn. She graduated from Chattanooga High School in 1904 and attended Mrs. Starrett’s School in Chicago, and Western College at Oxford, Ohio. After college, she was a newspaper reporter in Chattanooga and active in the suffrage movement in Tenn. Penelope Johnson Allen was active in a number of clubs and lineage societies and was avid genealogist and historian. Mrs. Allen served one of the state supervisors for the Tenn. Historic Records Project of the WPA from 1937 to 1942. She published a series of articles in the Chattanooga Times entitled “Leaves from the Family Tree” later collected and published in book form. She published a number of history and genealogy books over a long and productive life. 1500 volumes of Tenn. County records were transcribed and indexed before the project ceased in World War II. The complete volumes were bound and added to the library research collection. The master file of these volumes in the Tenn. State Library and Archives but also available here on microfilm. This collection is a large set of volumes not completed as the project was shut down.