Portia Mansfield was born on November 19, 1887 in Chicago. She was an American dance educator and choreographer. Her family moved to Florida in 1899. She went to middle school in Winter Park. She went to high school at Miss Morgan's School for Girls in New York City. After that, she went to Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts. Then she took dance classes in Europe.
She operated a dance school in Omaha, Nebraska. In 1913 Charlotte Perry and Portia Mansfield started a dance and art camp in Steamboat Springs Colorado, named Perry Mansfield Performing Arts School & Camp. It became the oldest continuous dance school in the US. In 1994 the camp was added to the National Register of Historic Places.