Allen Joseph Ellender was a popular U.S. senator from Houma, Louisiana , who served from 1937 until his death. He was a Democrat who was originally allied with the legendary Huey Pierce Long, Jr.

Ellender was born in the town of Montegut in Terrebonne Parish. He attended public and private schools and graduated from the Catholic St. Aloysius College in New Orleans, now Brother Martin High School in 1909, when he was only nineteen. He studied law at Tulane University in New Orleans. He was admitted to the bar in 1913 and launched his practice in Houma when he was twenty-three.