Allen Johnson (1870–1931) was an American historian, teacher, biographer, and editor, most notably of the Dictionary of American Biography. Johnson was born in Lowell, Massachusetts, where his father, Moses Allen Johnson (whose ancestor came to Massachusetts in 1630) worked for the Lowell Felting Mills. His mother was Elmira Shattuck. Johnson was the valedictorian of his high school in 1888, and then attended Amherst College, graduating in 1892. Johnson married Helen K. Ross on June 20, 1900, in Germantown, Pennsylvania. She died in 1921. They had one son, Allen S. Johnson.