[Two items were added to this collection in July 2010: letters from Miller to his nephew Charles Edison, February 12, 1908 and April 18, 1908. Eight letters were added in August 2012. ]

These letters are primarily from John Vincent Miller (1873-1940) to his older sister, Mina Miller Edison. The selected items cover the years 1886-1931 and 1937. Included are references to the health, financial affairs, travel, and other social activities of the Edison and Miller families. Also included are documents concerning the sale of musical instruments from Edison’s West Orange laboratory, as well as maintenance and minor renovations at the facility. Some letters discuss home repairs, the domestic staff, and the contents of the library at Glenmont, the Edison home in Llewellyn Park, New Jersey. A letter from February 1929 refers to a radio address by Thomas Edison on the occasion of his eighty-second birthday and its impact on the sale of radios. In addition, there are references to Thomas A. Edison, Jr., and William Edison, who attended St. Paul's School at the same time as John and Theodore Miller; the death of Theodore in the Spanish-American War; John’s marriage to Florence Stuart Nichols (1883-1943) in March 1921; the celebration of the Lewis Miller Centenary at Chautauqua in July 1929; the christening of Michael Edison Sloane in January 1931; the deteriorating health of Edison and his personal assistant, William H. Meadowcroft; and the final illness of William Edison in 1937. Some of the letters mention the children of John and Florence: Nancy Miller (Arnn), born in 1922, and Stuart Alexander Miller, born in 1925. Also mentioned is Calibron Products, Inc., a company that Theodore Edison organized in 1931 after resigning his position at the West Orange laboratory.

There are approximately 160 letters and other documents by or about John and Florence Miller in Book #7 on the Charles Edison Fund microfilm. Click here for a list of all the correspondence books on the CEF microfilm. In addition to the letters presented here, two other letters originally in the CEF Collection can be found in the Family Records Series in Part III of the Thomas A. Edison Papers digital edition. Thirty-one additional letters from John V. Miller to his parents Lewis and Mary Valinda Miller and to his sister Mina Miller Edison can be found among the family papers at the Edison-Ford Winter Estates. Numerous other letters, primarily from 1898-1899, can be found in the David E. E. Sloane Collection.

Courtesy of the Charles Edison Fund.