Jin Yunmei: A Transpacific Trailblazer in Health and Medical Education

Jin Yunmei led a legendary life (1864-1934), yet her groundbreaking contributions to health and nutrition studies in the U.S. and to medical education in China remain under-studied. Born into a Chinese Christian family in Zhejiang, Jin became the first Chinese female student to enter a women’s medical college in the U.S. and graduated with distinction at a young age. Upon returning to China in 1905, she became a pioneer in medical and nursing education and a champion for women’s medical care. After becoming the director of the Beiyang Women’s Hospital, she established a women’s medical school and founded China’s earliest public nursing school in an area two blocks from my family residence in Tianjin. The school helped many young women break free from the traditional confines of Chinese culture and earn an independent living. Many of her students later gained positions of influence in women’s health care in China.

Equally remarkable, Jin’s transpacific experience also included the fact that she was known for being the Chinese doctor who introduced tofu to the American public. Jin was asked by the American Department of Agriculture to go to China to study soybeans as part of the government’s efforts to provide a new source of protein for American soldiers during WWI, a mission that she fulfilled with phenomenal success. Even more noteworthy is the fact that Jin accomplished these extraordinary feats against the backdrop of the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act as well as the political and social turbulence around the time of the Chinese Republican Revolution and the early years of the new republic. Jin’s story is more than compelling, and its historical significance deserves amplification.