Penelope Johnson Allen Collection (historic manuscripts).

Penelope Johnson Allen (1886-1985) was a native of Chattanooga, Tennessee. 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 Tennessee. Penelope Johnson Allen was active in a number of clubs and lineage societies and was avid genealogist and historian. Mrs. Allen served as one of the state supervisors for the Tennessee 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. Early Grainger County, Tenn records, 1796-1877; folders on Blount, Carter, McMinn, and Washington Counties, Tenn.; folders on Territory South of the River Ohio, 1794; Washington District, 1795-1796. Rhea County, Tenn. tax lists, 1832, 1834, 1838. Rhea County, Tenn. records. Papers on individual families--see listing with collection.