2027 Taylor Street
Dr. Matilda Evans House
Built circa 1915, this former residence was the home of Dr. Matilda A. Evans from 1928 until her death in 1935. Evans, who received an M.D. in 1897, was the first licensed woman physician, black or white, in South Carolina, and the first to own and operate a black hospital in Columbia.
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Dr. Matilda Evans House, 2018. Historic Columbia collection
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Dr. Matilda Evans, From the Program of the Mid-Winter Session of the Bishops' Council of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, Columbia, S.C., February 14, 1923. Image courtesy South Caroliniana Library, University of South Carolina, Columbia
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Matilda Evans Home seen beside the now-demolished Griffon Memorial Building, 1920s. From A True Likeness, The Black South of Richard Samuel Roberts: 1920-1936; (c) The Estate of Richard Samuel Roberts, by permission of Bruccoli Clark Layman, Inc.
She opened two hospitals in Columbia: Taylor Lane Hospital (1901-1911) and St. Luke’s Hospital and Evans’ Sanitorium (1914-1918), where she trained black nurses and physicians. A resolute advocate for public health, Evans operated Lindenwood Park, the area’s only public recreational facility for black children, established the Negro Health Association of South Carolina, and in 1930 established the city’s first free health clinic for African American children, which saw 3,800 patients in its first three months.