The daughter of Helen McClees and Samuel May, Edith May was born in Boston, Massachusetts, and graduated from Wellesley College in 1897. She taught at Dana Hall School in Wellesley, Massachusetts, and during the summers traveled in Europe. In 1904 she founded the Travel School for American Girls, based in Paris and Florence, which offered an eight-month educational program and which flourished until the outbreak of World War I. May joined the French Wounded Emergency Fund where, as an official appointee of the French government, she inspected war hospitals in France and furnished them with supplies. Her older sister, Helen G. M. Frenaye, also worked in France during the war. After the war, Edith May founded and directed the Villa Collina Ridente, Centre for European and International Studies, in Florence, Italy, which was unique for its time and eventually offered post-graduate courses. The property was destroyed during World War II and she sold it in 1951. After the war, May became interested in Frank N. D. Buchanan's idea of Moral Re-Armament, joining him in his work in Caux, Switzerland. She lived in her family home in Wickford, Rhode Island, in her later years.
From the description of Papers of Edith May, 1898-1970 (inclusive), 1898-1918 (bulk). (Harvard University). WorldCat record id: 472792504
