Helen Allegrone Collection

Details

Who's responsible?: Martha Blakeney Hodges Special Collections and University Archives, UNCG University Libraries (Repository)
How much has been digitized?: Only a part of this collection has been digitized.
Where can I find more information?: https://uncg.as.atlas-sys.com/repositories/2/resources/880
What's in the full collection?: 12 April 1999 oral history transcript; 2 photographs of several women in uniforms posing together from the Aene Brumbles Jones Collection, circa 1943.
Full biography: Helen R. Allegrone (1921-2009) of Cambridge, Massachusetts, served in cryptography in the United States Navy WAVES (Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service) from March 1943 until 1945. Helen Russell Allegrone was born in 1921 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where her father was city mayor and her grandfather was the state governor. She attended Barnard College in New York for one year, then graduated from Radcliffe College in Cambridge in January 1943. In March 1943, Allegrone joined the WAVES (Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service). She attended basic training at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts, and was then assigned to the research department in cryptography in Washington, D.C. Allegrone was discharged from the WAVES as a lieutenant in the fall of 1945. In February 1946, Helen married Charlie Allegrone, and they had four children together. She later earned a teaching certificate at The University of North Carolina at Greensboro and taught at all-black Hampton Elementary School. In 1990, Allegrone ran for Congress, but was defeated by Howard Coble. Allegrone died on 9 October 2009.
Topics: Women's History
Military
Schools and Colleges
Branch of service: Navy -- WAVES
Conflict: World War II era (1940-1946)
Subject headings: World War, 1939-1945
United States. Navy--Women
Contributing Institution: Martha Blakeney Hodges Special Collections and University Archives, UNCG University Libraries

: Oral history interview with Helen Allegrone; Primarily documents Helen Allegrone's experiences in the U.S. Navy WAVES (Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service), both at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts, and in Washington, D.C., where she worked in cryptography. Allegrone discusses her decision to join the WAVES. Topics include learning about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor; her invitation to join the WAVES; reactions when she joined the WAVES; her father's encouragement; and the song, WAVES of the Navy. " Allegrone also talks about her service experiences. She describes a typical day of basic training; testing for mistakes in cryptography machines; cryptography methods; her involvement in the Pearl Harbor trials; and her social life in Washington, D.C., including dances, museums, and concerts. She discusses President Franklin D. Roosevelt's death; her opinion of Eleanor Roosevelt; meeting her husband on V-E Day; fraternizing with enlisted men and WAVES; and attending a Communist meeting in her uniform. " Personal topics include Allegrone's family's political background; her involvement in America First; working hard to pass her college classes; volunteering at New York settlement houses; flying to California to get married; the Vietnam War; her opinion of women in combat and leadership positions; running for Congress; and teaching in a segregated Greensboro school.