FAMILY HISTORY

Inventors In The Family
The Miller Family bears a long tradition of invention dating back to the 1820’s, beginning with Sarah’s great, great grandfather Lewis Miller, and continues into the post-World War II era.

Inventor, Educator, Philanthropist
Lewis Miller (1829 – 1899)

Lewis Miller invented labor-saving equipment for the American farmer.

Lewis Miller (photo at right) and his wife Mary Valinda Miller married in 1852, raising 11 children.  Lewis and Valinda’s seventh child, Mina, married Thomas Edison in 1886 at the age of 20, two years after the death of Edison’s first wife Mary. (See photo below.)  Sarah is descended from one of Mina’s older brothers, Robert Miller, the fifth child of Lewis and Valinda.

  
Lewis Miller received 92 U.S. patents during his lifetime, including the highly successful Buckeye Mower & Reaper (1855) on permanent display in the Smithsonian Institution. The Buckeye efficiently cut and bound grain, dramatically improving labor efficiency in America’s burgeoning agricultural economy.  Later improvements to The Buckeye allowed a driver to lift bound sheaves of grain using a mechanical arm, placing them in his wagon.  This invention foreshadowed the Combine Harvester of modern times.

Lewis Miller established “the most completely equipped manufactory of Harvesting Machines in the world” in Akron, Ohio, employing thousands of workers.  Henry Ford was a great admirer of Lewis Miller’s, and said, “Every time I see a Buckeye Mower, I want to pat it.”

Mina Miller Edison and husband Thomas Alva Edison, 1908

A man of diverse interests, Lewis Miller also established “The Akron Plan” for religious education. A philanthropist who believed in giving of his resources for the betterment of humanity, Lewis Miller also co-founded Chautauqua Institution in 1874 with Bishop John Heyl Vincent.  Located on the shores of beautiful Lake Chautauqua in western New York State, the Chautauqua Institution still exists today as a world-renowned cultural center for education, the arts, recreation, and religious study.

You can learn more about Lewis Miller and Chautauqua at www.ciweb.org.

Inventor, Scientist

Robert A. Miller Jr. (*- 1959) 

Robert Miller, Jr. is standing beside the left rear passenger door.

A grandson of Lewis Miller, and the son of Mina’s older brother Robert, Robert Jr. received several patents on Herculite Glass® in the 1920’s and 1930’s during his long tenure at Pittsburgh Plate Glass (PPG).  More commonly known as “shatterproof glass,” Robert’s numerous patents made glass safe to use in high-rise buildings, revolving doors, airports, and the windshields of automobiles.  First introduced in the U.S. in 1937, demand for Herculite skyrocketed in 1948 after World War II.  Chrysler was the first American automobile company to adopt Herculite. Today, shatterproof glass is a global mainstay in dozens of industries.

Robert Jr. was also very involved in finding ways to efficiently distribute sunlight to the interior spaces of buildings, using “diffusing glass.”  He experimented with numerous reflecting surfaces to accomplish this, including glazes.  Miller studied how chemical treatments placed on glass surfaces as well as paint hues on walls could deflect more natural light, reducing the cost of artificially lighting interior spaces.  

Miller received his baccalaureate degree from Yale University, and a Master’s degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.  He was a member of numerous scientific societies in the U.S.
     

Robert A. Miller III (*- 2004) 

An industry-leading actuary who remains one of the few individuals ever to pass every exam on both the Life and Casualty sides of the insurance industry, Robert A. Miller III was a life-long employee of Aetna in Hartford, CT.   Serving his country as a Naval officer during World War II, “Uncle Bob” was sent to Honolulu for a portion of his service.  Shortly before his death in 2004, Uncle Bob revealed he’d received written notice from the government stating he could now openly discuss his work as a code-breaker in World War II.  Uncle Bob served with a highly select group of men in Honolulu.  We hypothesize that he was a member of the top-secret Hypo team, which broke Japanese codes after the crippling attacks on Pearl Harbor.  A whiz with numbers, Uncle Bob was a master at seeing patterns in puzzles, cyphers, mathematical equations, and other symbolic systems.

Further information about the Hypo team is available in the extraordinary book, Battle of Wits: The Complete Story of Code-Breaking in World War II by Steven Budiansky.

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