They were raised in Wallingford, Connecticut, and were the valedictorian and salutatorian of their graduating class at Lyman Hall High School.

Abbe attended the Pratt Institute, where she studied under Walter Civardi and painter Reginald Marsh; she graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 1941.

By 1942, she was working for Vogue under Toni Frissell; she left the magazine and became a professional freelance photographer in 1944 – one of few women to hold the position at the time.

[2] Although in the 1940s she photographed New England and Brooklyn extensively,[3] by the mid-1940s her assignments took her around the world, notably to Paris, Havana, New York, Rome and Milan.

[5] Her work was published in over eighty books and international periodicals, among them, Better Homes and Gardens, McCall's, Cosmopolitan, Good Housekeeping, Paris Match, and Vogue.