Profile of Dora Mitchell / Dolores Michel (1891-1970), Little-Known Writer of Black Los Angeles

What is it about?

This article-length profile introduces readers to Dora L. Mitchell, also known as Dolores Michel, a prolific yet elusive writer who is nearly invisible in the historical record. A Black woman of modest means, one generation removed from slavery, Mitchell sometimes self-concealed through racial passing, and her work appeared in fragile and obscure venues. This essay explores how she illuminates Black life in turn-of-the-century Los Angeles and how her story demonstrates Black women's options for navigating California's literary landscape before 1940. The profile begins with Mitchell’s dynamic biography and family history. It then analyzes her work in the Black community done under her birth name as well as her reinvention as Dolores Michel, under which she also published and passed as white or Latina. She wrote for silent film, including authoring the screenplay for a Black Western; published in the Black newspaper the CALIFORNIA EAGLE and elsewhere; and wrote for a range of pulp magazines. As Michel, she also did clerical work at the Los Angeles Police Department, which provided material for her crime writing. This profile ends with an introduction to her 1923 story “The Shadowed Witness,” a courtroom murder mystery advocating for civil rights, which is reprinted following the profile in the same issue of LEGACY. Taken together, the profile and reprinted story contribute to a more inclusive literary history of the American West, where Black women's lives and writing are only beginning to be fully considered.

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Photo by Mike Hindle on Unsplash

Photo by Mike Hindle on Unsplash