The Thomas A. Edison Papers Digital Edition

[This folder has not been completely edited. Letters are currently being added, and documents identified as "to be edited" may not have images or complete database information. In addition, the information in the folder target (editorial description) may not be up-to-date.]

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. Among the topics discussed are vacation plans for 1892 and 1893 and a serious illness suffered by Lewis in the Spring of 1893. There are numerous references to the financial difficulties of Miller's companies (in which the Edisons were stockholders)—C. Aultman & Co., Aultman Miller & Co. and the Akron Iron Co.—after the Panic of 1893. 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's relations with her stepchildren Marion, Thomas Jr., and William; and the death of her brother Theodore 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.

Some of the letters were scanned from Books #27 and #32 on the Charles Edison Fund (CEF) microfilm. Click here for a list of all the correspondence books on the CEF microfilm. Additional letters are from a box of correspondence bearing the title "Mina's Letter[s] from Mother and Father Mary and Lewis Miller." Click here for a list of the boxes of original correspondence at CEF.]

In addition to the correspondence presented here, ten 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.