Maria Mott (Hallowell) "May" Loud was born into a family of Quaker abolitionists, staunch supporters of women's suffrage and religious tolerance. Her great-grandmother was the early feminist, Lucretia (Coffin) Mott.

May was an artist by profession, lesser known, but talented - a painter, illustrator and teacher. She worked mainly in oils and was best known as a portraitist, but also worked in watercolor and pastels. She exhibited her work regularly from the late 1880s until 1910. May showed her work at the Paris Salon of 1886, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, the Boston Art Club, the National Academy of Design, and the Art Institute of Chicago.

May had displayed artistic talent from a young age, and in 1871 her mother, a talented amateur artist, traveled with May to Paris, where together they studied art for several months.

In 1879 entered the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, where she studied under Otto Grundmann. There she befriended the American Impressionist Frank Weston Benson. She edited the Museum School's publication, "The Art Student," with Benson and another classmate, Robert Reid.

May remained four years at the Museum School before traveling once again to France, where she spent a year (1883-1884) studying at the Académie Julian in Paris under Tony Robert-Fleury, Giacomotti, and Louis Deschamps. Frank W. Benson was also there, and during the summer, May and her friends (Willard Metcalf, Edward Simmons, and Benson) painted at Concarneau.

They also made a habit of copying works displayed at the Louvre and other Parisian museums. As one author noted: "Like most students of their day," May & her friends "took their easels into the Louvre's great halls to copy [the masters]...Not only did they improve their skills, but they also peddled their copies to tourists."

After returning to the United States, May continued her studies at Cowles Art School in Boston. She also studied privately with Abbott Thayer and Denman W. Ross.

She was a member of the Boston Art Students' Association and the Administrative Council of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. She sat on the council of the School of the Museum of Fine Arts. She was also a member of the Medford Shakespeare Club, the Boston Water Color Club, the Copley Society, the Water Color Club of New York and the Boston Society of Arts and Crafts. In 1901, she was employed with the Boston Society of Arts and Crafts as a designer.

On Feb. 12, 1901 at the Hallowell Residence in West Medford, May married architect and avid amateur photographer, Joseph Prince Loud. He shared her passion for both the arts and social reform.

May's husband interested her in photography, encouraging her to join several photography clubs. She would eventually begin exhibiting photographs in addition to her paintings.

May shared her parents views regarding racial equality and religious tolerance. May and several members of her family, including her her husband, were founding members of the Boston Branch of the N.A.A.C.P. According to her obituary (published in Dec. issue of the N.A.A.C.P.'s magazine "Crisis"), May "was one of the strongest members of the Board of Directors of the N.A.A.C.P." in Boston, and that "gradually...her interest in humanity and particularly in the Negro...claimed all her energies."

In addition to her work with the N.A.A.C.P., May served as President of the Boston Calhoun Club, which raised money for the "Calhoun Colored School" in Alabama. She was noted as "one of the strongest supporters" of Calhoun Colored School.

Her husband, Joseph Prince Loud, eventually went on to serve as President (from 1914) of the Boston Branch of the N.A.A.C.P., and was a member of the Board of the Directors of the N.A.A.C.P.'s national committee.