Robert & Ruth Chinn
Financial pioneers who opened the first Asian-owned bank in America
YEAR INDUCTED
2022
CATEGORY
Philanthropy,
Business
HOMETOWN
Los Angeles and Seattle
Financial pioneer Robert Chinn (1912-1984) and his wife, Ruth (1914-2007), founded the first Asian-owned bank in the United States. United Savings and Loan Bank opened in 1960 in Seattle’s International District with a mission to help its customers achieve home ownership and other economic goals often unavailable to minorities through mainstream financial institutions. Robert Chinn was born in 1912 in Seattle to second-generation Chinese American parents. Ruth Chinn was born in 1914 in Los Angeles. The couple met at Ling Nan University in Canton, China where they both were studying. They married in 1935 and settled in Seattle. For many decades the Chinns were a unifying force in Seattle’s International District, devoted to community service. Ruth also opened and operated the Career Girl dress shop in downtown Seattle, in partnership with their daughter Karen. After Robert’s death in 1984, Ruth became Chairman of the Robert Chinn Foundation and co-founder of the Asian Resource Center.
