May Edward Chinn

Who was May Edward Chinn?

May Edward Chinn was an African-American woman physician. She was the first African-American woman to graduate from Bellevue Hospital Medical College and the first African-American woman to intern at Harlem Hospital. In her private practice, she provided care for patients who would not otherwise receive treatment. She was a strong advocate of early cancer screening.

Chinn was born in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. Her father, William Lafayette, was the son of a plantation slave and her owner; at the age of 11, he escaped from this Virginia plantation. Her mother, Lulu Ann, was the daughter of a slave and a Chickahominy Native American, who worked as the live-in cook at the Long Island mansion of the Tiffany family of jewelers. The Tiffany family encouraged Chinn's interest in music. Growing up, she attended musical concerts in New York City and learned to play piano, accompanying the singer Paul Robeson in the early 1920s. The Tiffany family also taught her the German and French languages.

Chinn's mother, who valued education, saved enough money from cooking to send Chinn to the Bordentown Manual and Training Industrial School, a New Jersey boarding school, until Chinn contracted osteomyelitis of the jaw. Chinn remained in New York City after her surgery there, but she was too poor to finish high school. Despite her lack of a diploma, she took the entrance examination to Columbia Teachers College and passed it, matriculating in 1917.