English: Biography: A specialist in early childhood education, Lucy Miller Mitchell has devoted almost 50 years to teaching, to improving standards of child care, and to implementing local and federal child care programs. Born in Daytona Beach, Fla., she lived with her mother, Laura Clayton Miller, and was educated from kindergarten through high school at Daytona Normal and Industrial Institute. There, she witnessed Mary McLeod Bethune courageously face down the Ku Klux Klan. Graduating from Talladega College in 1922, she returned to the Daytona school to teach for one year. Although Mrs. Bethune and the trustees of the school expressed a wish that the "mantle of leadership" should pass to her, Miss Miller chose marriage to Joseph Mitchell and a move to Boston. Concern for the education of their two children led her into the field which became her life work. She took courses at the Nursery Training School with Abigail A. Eliot, receiving certification in 1934, and was awarded a master's degree in early childhood education from Boston University in 1935. As director of the nursery school at Robert Gould Shaw House from 1932 to 1953, she developed a model school to which many students were sent for field work and practice teaching. She was a member of the structuring committee of Associated Day Care Services of Metropolitan Boston, and later its educational director and acting executive director. In 1953 the governor of Massachusetts appointed Mrs. Mitchell to a special commission to study the licensing of day care agencies; licensing legislation was passed after ten years' effort. After retirement from the Associated Day Care Services, she trained Peace Corps volunteers to work with children, was a consultant to National Head Start, and helped launch and implement the local Boston programs. Mrs. Mitchell has served on the boards of many agencies, including United Community Services of Metropolitan Boston and the Boston YWCA; she was president of the Boston Association for the Education of Young Children and was among a small group that helped Muriel Snowden (another project interviewee) and her husband Otto Snowden establish Freedom House in Roxbury. Memberships include The Links, Inc., and AKA.

Description: The Black Women Oral History Project interviewed 72 African American women between 1976 and 1981. With support from the Schlesinger Library, the project recorded a cross section of women who had made significant contributions to American society during the first half of the 20th century. Photograph taken by Judith Sedwick
Repository: Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America.
Collection: Black Women Oral History Project
Research Guide: http://guides.library.harvard.edu/schlesinger_bwohp

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