Constance Mitchell (1888–1976)

Constance Mitchell was a librarian and educator at Arkansas State Teachers College (ASTC), now the University of Central Arkansas (UCA), in Conway (Faulkner County). She was integral in establishing the prototype of the modern UCA Archives and Special Collections in 1950.

Constance Mines Mitchell was born on August 10, 1888, in Radford, Virginia, to James E. Mitchell and Gertrude Gabbert Mitchell. Her father worked as a traveling salesman and a railroad employee before moving to Arkansas to grow cotton on forty acres of land. The family moved to Bloomington, Illinois, where she attended Illinois Wesleyan University and earned a BA. She earned an MA in English from George Peabody College and a library science degree from the University of Illinois. She also attended Columbia University, the University of Chicago, the University of Colorado, and Oxford University.

Mitchell accepted a position with the English Department at what was then Arkansas State Normal School in 1919 shortly after meeting President Dr. Burr Walter Torreyson. Mitchell taught English and library science courses, and she quickly endeared herself to students; in 1921, she was voted most popular teacher by the student body.

For $3,000, Mitchell and her life partner Dr. Ada Jane Harvey, who was head of the ASTC Foreign Languages Department, purchased a house together, located at 703 Donaghey Avenue, where they resided for over fifty years. They also owned and drove a car together, which they named Nicolette, as early as 1921.

Recognizing an additional way to serve students during the Great Depression, Mitchell and Harvey offered room and partial board to female students suffering from financial constraints, as well as offering assistance to male students. A former student recalled in 1986, “Students lived with them—and they seemed to spoil each one of them. Once a student had associated with them, the student was assured a college degree—if they worked hard—for they helped many financially…but seldom talked about it.”

Mitchell coached women’s basketball on campus from 1920 to 1931. Despite numerous losses under Mitchell’s direction, the girls’ basketball team in 1921 noted that “no coach labored harder than did Miss Mitchell.” According to The Centennial History of the University of Central Arkansas, Mitchell held the third-highest percentage of wins in UCA women’s basketball history. She further promoted women’s physical activity through her role as sponsor of the Hiking and Waa Waa Kii Clubs. During its first year, the Hiking Club hiked fifty miles.

Ten years after she left coaching, Mitchell served as the head librarian for ASTC from 1941 to 1954; concurrently, she served as a graduate librarian with the Arkansas State Library Commission during the fall term of 1941. One of Mitchell’s lasting contributions to ASTC was the creation of the Arkansas Room located inside the library. The Arkansas Room opened in the summer of 1950, allowing visitors to view books and papers donated by Joe Frauenthal, a trustee on the college board. A second donation of Arkansas material from Judge J. S. Utley’s estate required that both collections be properly cataloged for a special section within the library. At the time, the ASTC Arkansas Room was considered one of the three best “semi-public,” or non-circulating, collections of Arkansas material within the state, with the key distinction of being the most accessible.

In 1951, the annual yearbook, The Scroll, was dedicated to Mitchell for her “guiding influence inside and outside the library.” Mitchell integrated herself into the fabric of student life through her numerous sponsorships of student organizations: Delta Phi Delta, Waa Waa Kii Club, Hiking Club, Cinema Club, Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA), and Library Club. Mitchell was described by alumni as a vitalizing force of ASTC.

One student who remained in contact with Mitchell was author Dee Brown. His 1942 novel Wave High the Banner: A Novel Based on the Life of Davy Crockett was dedicated to Mitchell. Accompanied by his family, Brown often visited Mitchell and Harvey at their residence in Conway and at Mitchell’s summer home in Virginia. Mitchell told former colleague and prominent Arkansas historian Ted Worley in a 1969 letter that Brown’s son J. Mitchell Brown was named for her.

Mitchell was active in numerous professional organizations including the American Association of University Women (AAUW), the Arkansas Library Association (ArLA), and the Conway Shakespeare Club. The third named fellowship offered by the AAUW Conway Branch was in Mitchell and Harvey’s honor in 1972 for their contributions to the Conway Branch and Arkansas Division.

Mitchell’s service with ArLA included membership on the Legislative Standing Committee (chairman), the Committee on Cooperation with the American Library Association—ALA (chairman), and general children’s education committees. At the ALA conference in Chicago in 1947, Mitchell reported that a fire had destroyed the Training School building at ASTC, and the children’s library collection within had been almost entirely destroyed. In subsequent reports, Mitchell updated ArLA on the progress of rebuilding the collection; by April 1949, Mitchell had replaced items and expanded the collection to approximately 1,300 items before the new children’s librarian was hired to complete the project, totaling approximately 2,000 books.

The Conway Shakespeare Club presented programs on modern novels and plays, as well as the works of William Shakespeare, to the community. In her role as secretary, Mitchell introduced discourse on the works of authors such as Theodore Dreiser, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and Carl Sandburg; she led discussions that focused on French current events and that of “The Modern American Magazine.”

Mitchell died on April 14, 1976, bequeathing all of her “tangible personal property” and creating a trust for the support and comfort of her partner Harvey. Described as “two halves of the same chapter,” Mitchell and Harvey share a family burial plot, with Mitchell’s parents, in the Historic Oak Grove Cemetery in Conway. Mitchell’s legacy continues through the Harvey-Mitchell/First Presbyterian Church Scholarship available to UCA students.

For additional information:
American Association of University Women (Conway Branch) Collection, M21-01. University of Central Arkansas Archives and Special Collections, Conway, Arkansas. Finding aid online at https://uca.edu/archives/m21-01-american-association-of-university-women-conway-branch/ (accessed February 19, 2026).

American Association of University Women, Southwest Central Region. The Story of the Southwest Central Region of AAUW, 1926–1966. April 1966.

Arkansas State Normal School. The Scroll. Conway, Arkansas. https://uca.edu/archives/the-scroll/ (accessed February 19, 2026).

Bryant, Jimmy. The Centennial History of the University of Central Arkansas. Virginia Beach, VA: Donning Co. Publishers, 2008.

Central Arkansas Library System. “For Constance and Ada: Snail Methods of Queer Archival Praxis.” Legacies & Lunch, YouTube, June 4, 2025. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62GgfUCI2qI&t=1226s (accessed February 20, 2026). [see Related Web Video in sidebar]

Compton, LaNell. Interview by James Philip Kimmer, April 26, 1990. Interview transcript, UCA History Oral History Collection. University of Central Arkansas Archives and Special Collections. Finding aid online at https://uca.edu/archives/uca-history-2/ (accessed February 19, 2026).

———. “What Shall We Say Then—?” Arkansas Libraries 2 (July 1954): 11–13.

Conway Shakespeare Club Collection, M95-07. University of Central Arkansas Archives and Special Collections, Conway, Arkansas. Finding aid online at https://uca.edu/archives/m95-07-conway-shakespeare-club-collection/ (accessed February 19, 2026).

Dr. Ada Jane Harvey & Constance Mitchell Collection, M89-28. University of Central Arkansas Archives and Special Collections, Conway, Arkansas. Finding aid online at https://uca.edu/archives/m89-28-ada-jane-harvey-collection/ (accessed February 19, 2026).

Official Records of the University of Central Arkansas Collection, M99-01. University of Central Arkansas Archives and Special Collections, Conway, Arkansas. Finding aid online at https://uca.edu/archives/m99-01-official-records-of-the-university-of-central-arkansas-collection/ (accessed February 19, 2026).