The papers of Major Elizabeth Allen document her service in the United States military as well as that of three generations of her family. The papers highlight her personal experiences with the military, Post-traumatic Stress Disorder, and Agent Orange; however they also include materials about her teaching and professional service. Materials include correspondence, family financial records, newspaper clippings, unpublished written works, photographs, biographical materials, newsletters and collected magazines, and academic articles.
Elizabeth Ann Allen was born in Huntington, West Virginia in 1940. Her mother died when she was a young child and she and her four siblings were raised by her grandmother. During her high school years, public schools in the south were desegregated and Allen was encouraged by her teachers to enroll in the historically white high school. She excelled in school, particularly in the areas of math and science, but was one of the few African Americans in her school and faced discrimination from her teachers and classmates daily. She was able to succeed in spite of this adversity and went on to pursue a college education.
She received a Bachelor of Science and a Master of Science in Nursing, in 1965 and 1966 respectively, from the Ohio State University. In 1967, inspired by her brother's service, she voluntarily joined the United States Army Nurse Corps at the rank of Captain and requested assignment on the front lines of the Vietnam War. She was one of fewer than 100 African American nurses deployed. She reported to the 12th Evacuation Hospital at Cu Chi and remained there for about six months before being assigned as Head Nurse of the Surgical Intensive Care Unit at the 71st Evacuation Hospital in Pleiku. During this time, in 1968, Pleiku was targeted in the first round of surprise attacks known as the Tet Offensive.
Upon her return to the United States, Allen trained Army medics to act as psychiatric practitioners in the field at Valley Forge General Hospital in Pennsylvania. In 1969, she was appointed, State Director for Psychiatric Nursing for the South Carolina Department of Mental Health and later went on to become Assistant Professor of Nursing at the University of South Carolina where she received her PhD in 1973. She joined the faculty of the School of Nursing at the University of Michigan in 1976. In addition to her duties as a faculty member, she acted as Director of the Center for Continuing Education for Nurses, a position she held until 1982. In 1985, she served as Acting Director of Minority Affairs at the University. Throughout her professional career, she advocated for veterans, and spoke on veterans' issues, such as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and the treatment of women and African Americans in the military. She was appointed by Governor James Blanchard, in 1987, to the Agent Orange Commission and was twice elected as chair. She continued to serve as a Major in the Active Army Nurse Corps Reserve until 1988. As a professor, she worked to create awareness among her students of the ways in which poverty, race, and social justice can have an impact on the field of nursing. Allen retired from her position as Associate Professor in 2007 and was named Associate Professor Emerita of Nursing by the University Regents that same year.
