[Six letters, covering the years 1886-1888 and 1892-1893, were added to this collection in June 2010. Among the topics discussed are vacation plans for 1892 and 1893 and a serious illness suffered by Lewis Miller in the Spring of 1893. Also included are comments regarding Mina's Edison's beneficial impact on her stepchildren, Marion, Thomas Jr., and William. The letters are from a box of correspondence, not on the Charles Edison Fund microfilm, bearing the title "Mina's Letter[s] from Mother and Father Mary and Lewis Miller." Click here for a list of other boxes containing correspondence not on the microfilm.]

These letters, which cover the years 1886-1898, consist of correspondence from Lewis Miller (1829-1899) to his son-in-law, Thomas A. Edison, and his daughter, Mina Miller Edison. The correspondence contains numerous references to the financial difficulties of Miller's companies—C. Aultman & Co., Aultman Miller & Co. and the Akron Iron Co.—in which the Edisons were stockholders. There is also discussion of Edison's involvement in the New Jersey & Pennsylvania Concentrating Works. In addition, there are references to the Edison homes in New Jersey and Florida; Mina Edison's relations with her stepsons, Thomas A. Edison, Jr., and William L. Edison; and the death of her brother, Theodore W. Miller, in the Spanish-American War. A lengthy letter from 1896 discusses the presidential campaign of William McKinley and Miller's opposition to the monetary policies of the Republican party. There is also a comment concerning the exhibition of nickel-in-the-slot phonographs at the California Mid-Winter International Exposition in San Francisco in 1894.

There are approximately 120 letters and other documents by or about Lewis Miller in Books #27 and #32 on the Charles Edison Fund microfilm. Click here for a list of all the correspondence books on the CEF microfilm. In addition to the 30 items presented here, 10 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. Five additional letters from Lewis Miller to his wife Mary Valinda and to his daughter Mina can be found among the family papers at the Edison-Ford Winter Estates.

Courtesy of the Charles Edison Fund.