{"id":8755,"date":"2023-08-18T10:28:40","date_gmt":"2023-08-18T14:28:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.une.edu\/research\/?p=8755"},"modified":"2023-08-18T12:26:54","modified_gmt":"2023-08-18T16:26:54","slug":"jennifer-tuttles-essay-dora-mitchell-dolores-michel-1891-1970-and-her-edition-of-mitchells-1923-story-the-shadowed-witness-have-been-published-in-legacy-a","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.une.edu\/research\/jennifer-tuttles-essay-dora-mitchell-dolores-michel-1891-1970-and-her-edition-of-mitchells-1923-story-the-shadowed-witness-have-been-published-in-legacy-a\/","title":{"rendered":"Jennifer Tuttle’s essay, “Dora Mitchell\/Dolores Michel (1891\u20131970),” and her edition of Mitchell’s 1923 story,\u00a0\u201cThe Shadowed Witness,\u201d have been published in Legacy: A Journal of American Women Writers, 39.2 (August 2023)."},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Jennifer Tuttle has published an article-length analytical profile, \u201cDora Mitchell\/Dolores Michel (1891\u20131970)<\/a>,\u201d introducing an author who is almost entirely unknown but whose life story and diverse creative output shed substantial light on Black women\u2019s writing in early twentieth-century Los Angeles. The profile is accompanied by a reprint, edited by Tuttle, of Mitchell\u2019s courtroom murder mystery \u201cThe Shadowed Witness<\/a>,\u201d which appeared serially in LA\u2019s premiere Black newspaper, the California Eagle<\/em>, in the summer of 1923; this month\u2019s re-publication thus celebrates the story\u2019s centenary. This work appears in Legacy: A Journal of American Women Writers<\/em>, but both the profile and the reprint are being offered free without a subscription by the University of Nebraska Press at the above links.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dora Mitchell and her ancestors are nearly invisible in the historical record, and most traces of her life, along with a portion of her work, have crumbled into dust. Yet Tuttle argues that their lives mattered: the experiences of Mitchell and her family are an important part of American history, Black history, women\u2019s history, and the history of the US West. Moreover, recovering Mitchell\u2019s creative work (which appeared in silent \u201crace films,\u201d newspaper inserts, Black newspapers, pulp magazines, and local theater–all ephemeral venues) helps substantially to expand researchers\u2019 expectations about what constitutes Black women writers\u2019 historical archive. That is it prods us to rethink where to look, and what to look for, when seeking out Black women\u2019s lives and work in the West before 1930.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tuttle spoke at length about the research process for this project in her\u00a0Ludcke Lecture<\/a>\u00a0earlier this year.\u00a0Her research on Dora Mitchell was supported by her recent sabbatical leave, her Ludcke research funding, and an academic research grant from Sisters in Crime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
If you want to use the attached image, here is a caption: Dora Mitchell wrote the original screenplay for The $10,000 Trail<\/em>, one of the earliest Black-cast Westerns written by a Black woman. Image: The $10,000 Trail <\/em>premiere program, 3 September 1921. George P. Johnson Negro Film Collection, LSC.1042, box 43, folder \u201cThe $10,000 Trail. (Moving-Picture).\u201d Courtesy of Library Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library, UCLA.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jennifer Tuttle has published an article-length analytical profile, \u201cDora Mitchell\/Dolores Michel (1891\u20131970),\u201d introducing an author who is almost …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"post_folder":[],"class_list":["post-8755","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-publications-and-awards"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.une.edu\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8755","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.une.edu\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.une.edu\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.une.edu\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/49"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.une.edu\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8755"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/sites.une.edu\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8755\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8762,"href":"https:\/\/sites.une.edu\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8755\/revisions\/8762"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.une.edu\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8755"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.une.edu\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8755"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.une.edu\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8755"},{"taxonomy":"post_folder","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.une.edu\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post_folder?post=8755"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}