in several Broadway plays, including "In Abraham's Bosom" (1926), "Coquette" (1927) starring Helen Hayes, and "The Little Foxes" (1939) starring Tallulah Bankhead. Mitchell was best known for performing in the role of Clara in the premiere of George Gershwin's Porgy and Bess (1935); this was her last musical role on the stage. She was the first singer to record "Summertime" from the opera. After this, "she taught and coached many singers in New York and appeared in many 'spoken' dramatic roles on the stage." In 1939, she played the role of Tallulah Bankhead's intelligent and trusted servant in The Little Foxes on Broadway. She also performed in New York City in other productions and taught at the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. Lee De Forest made a short film, Songs of Yesteryear (1922), of Mitchell singing, using his DeForest Phonofilm sound-on-film process. This film is preserved in the Maurice Zouary film collection at the Library of Congress. Their daughter, raised by family members as Mitchell had been, married dancer Louis Douglas. Their son became a professor at Howard University and a translator. He was later appointed as United States Ambassador to Niger and Senegal.<ref>"Mercer Cook Biography ", 'The History Makers.</ref> Mitchell died in New York on March 16, 1960, and was given a Catholic funeral. Notes See also African American musical theater Rose McClendon Evelyn Ellis References McGinty, Doris Evans, '"As Large As She Can Make It": The Role of Black Women Activists in Music, 1880–1945' in Locke, Ralph P., and Cyrilla Barr, editors, Cultivating Music in America: Women Patrons and Activists since 1860 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997) (Footnote 33) Peterson, Bernard, Profiles of African American Stage Performers and Theatre People, 1816-1960 (Greenwood Press, 2000) p.187 Paula Marie Seniors, "Beyond Lift Every Voice and Sing": The Culture Of Uplift, Identity, and Culture in Black Musical Theater,'' 2009 External links Songs of Yesterday (1922), at Silent Era (with photo of Mitchell) 1922 passport photo of Abbie Mitchell,(courtesy of the puzzlemaster, flickr.com) another passport photo, with Elmer Certain 19th-century African-American women singers 19th-century American women opera singers African-American women opera singers 20th-century African-American women singers 20th-century American women opera singers American stage actresses American operatic sopranos American people of German-Jewish descent 1960 deaths 1884 births Musicians from Baltimore 20th-century American actresses Singers from Maryland African-American Catholics