Ruth Allen (economist)

Allen was born in Cameron, Texas, in 1889 and earned her B.A. degree from the University of Texas at Austin in 1921 and her M.A. from the same university two years later. She then received her Ph.D. from the University of Chicago. Her doctoral advisor was Harry A. Millis and her dissertation committee included Frank Knight and Paul Douglas.[1]

Allen returned to Texas for the rest of her career, briefly serving as chair of the Department of Economics (1942–43), but spending most of the next two decades as the department's graduate advisor until her retirement in 1959. After retiring for the first time, she spent six years at Huston–Tillotson College to preserve its accreditation before retiring again in 1968.[1]

Allen's most important works, The Role of Women in the Production of Cotton, OCLC 1174485, a revision of her 1933 dissertation, and East Texas Lumber Workers (1961), OCLC 234567, were fact-based socioeconomic surveys of those Texas industries through the lens of institutional economics. Allen designed the questionnaires herself and personally conducted most of the interviews.[2]

• Dimand, Robert W.; Dimand, Mary Ann & Forget, Evelyn L., eds. (2000). A Biographical Dictionary of Women Economists. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar. ISBN 1852789646.

• Ruth Allen Papers finding aid at University of Texas at Arlington Libraries Special Collections via Texas Archival Resources Online (TARO)