October 4, 1876 - December 31, 1960
Florence Allen was born on October 4, 1876 in Horicon, Wisconsin. She received her undergraduate and master degrees at the University of Wisconsin in 1900 and 1901, respectively. In 1907 she became the second woman to receive a Ph.D. in mathematics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and the fourth Ph.D. overall from that department. Her thesis was entitled "The cycle involutions of third order determined by nets of curves of deficiency 0, 1, and 2." It was published in the Quarterly Journal of Mathematics, Vol. 45 (1914) [Abstract]. She remained at the University of Wisconsin as an instructor in mathematics for the next thirty years, publishing two more papers on "A Certain Class of Transcendental Curves" and "Closure of the Tangential Process on the Rational Plane Cubic". Allen was promoted to assistant professor in 1945, and retired two years later. She was a member of the Phi Beta Kappa Society.