The Thomas A. Edison Papers Digital Edition

[This folder has not been completely edited. Approximately 40 documents have recently been added, and these documents do not have images or complete database information. In addition, the information in the folder target (editorial description) may not be up-to-date.]

These documents, which cover the years 1905, 1922-1930, 1945, and 1976, consist primarily of letters from Mina Miller Edison to her niece, Margaret Miller (1887-1981). The first item is a 1905 journal, kept by Margaret, of an automobile trip with the Edison family through the White Mountains of New Hampshire. The journal is followed by some photographs taken on the trip. Margaret mentions seeing the "peace envoys" during her visit to Portsmouth; these were the delegates who negotiated the Treaty of Portsmouth ending the Russo-Japanese War. She also mentions meeting Mr. James, who may have been philosopher William James, who owned a country home at Chocorua, N.H. There is also a newspaper clipping from 1926 announcing Margaret's marriage to Henry Otis Newman (1891-1958), a research chemist who worked for the B. F. Goodrich Co.

Several letters relate to the breakdown of Margaret's marriage and Mina's efforts to reconcile the couple. The 1945 letter informs Margaret and her sister Elizabeth that Mina's sister, Mary Miller Nichols, fell and broke her hip and and is now resting at the hospital in White Plains, New York. The 1976 document is an interview in which Margaret discusses the history of the Miller family, the role of her grandfather Lewis Miller in the Chautauqua movement, and his relationship with co-founder John Heyl Vincent.