Today would mark the 119th birthday of Cantabrigian Corinne Woodson Alleyne. Alleyne, born Corinne Helen Woodson on July 21, 1907 in Cambridge, was a registered nurse, oral historian, videographer, and documentary filmmaker. For the first several years of her life, Corinne lived with her father Albert, who worked as a hotel waiter, her mother Emma, and her siblings in Cambridge. The family boarded at 16 Hubbard Avenue, one in a set of ten three-story brick rowhouses constructed by the New England Brick Company in 1872.
Mrs. Alleyne was licensed as a nurse in 1930, but was denied work for 12 years because she was African American. She was finally hired during WWII when there was a shortage of nurses. Through her long career, she worked as a nurse in Boston hospitals, as a private nurse, and as a Boston Public Health Commission nursing supervisor. In 1954, she was elected Chairwoman of the Massachusetts Nurses Association private duty nurse section.
In her retirement, Mrs. Alleyne became an oral historian, videographer and documentary filmmaker, recording histories of Boston senior citizens. In 1986, Alleyne, Kathleen Walcott and E. Denise Simmons organized an exhibit for Black History Month titled “Cambridge Black History: The Invisible Years”. In a Boston Globe article about the exhibit, Alleyne said, “We want to build awareness in young peoples’ minds of their culture. History will die if not collected.” In 1998, she was honored by Mayor Menino and the City of Boston with a lifetime achievement award. She died in September 2000 at the age of 93. We thank Corinne Woodson Alleyne and recognize her work to collect, preserve, and share her community’s history.
To learn more about trailblazing women like Corinne Woodson Alleyne, visit the Cambridge Women’s Heritage Project database: https://cwhp.cambridgema.gov/
