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COLLECTION Identifier: MC 711

Papers of Patricia Miller King, 1864, 1882-1994

Overview

Personal papers of Patricia Miller King, former director of the Schlesinger Library (1973-1994). Also contains papers of her father, Donald Knox Miller, and his family.

Dates

  • Creation: 1864
  • Creation: 1882-1994

Language of Materials

Materials in English.

Access Restrictions:

Access. Unrestricted.

Conditions Governing Use

Copyright. Copyright in the papers created by Patricia Miller King is held by the President and Fellows of Harvard College for the Schlesinger Library. Copyright in other papers in the collection may be held by their authors, or the authors' heirs or assigns.

Copying. Papers may be copied in accordance with the library's usual procedures.

Extent

13.4 linear feet ((23 + 1/2 file boxes, 1 folio box, 2 folio+ boxes) plus 1 folio folder, 7 folio+ folders, 5 photograph folders)

The papers of Patricia Miller King include correspondence, photographs, scrapbooks, college course work, typewritten speeches, and materials relating to her professional activities including advisory board work, committee work, conferences, and international travel. The collection also includes materials from her father Donald Knox Miller and her grandfather Andrew Richard Miller, including correspondence, photographs, scrapbooks, diaries, and genealogies.

Series I, BIOGRAPHICAL AND PERSONAL, 1937-1994 (#1.1-14.14, FD.1, F+D.1-F+D.4, PD.1-PD.2), includes correspondence, report cards, school newspapers, yearbooks, Radcliffe College class notes, wedding book, and material relating to King's education, travel, to her daughter Victoria Elizabeth King, and her marriages to Allan B. King and Samuel Stein. The series is arranged in two subseries.

Subseries A, Biographical and personal, 1937-1994 (#1.1-3.7, FD.1, PD.1-PD.2), includes correspondence, passports, curricula vita, children's artwork, baby book, and certificates. The materials relate to her daughter, her marriages, Sheldon Calvary Camp (Conneaut, Ohio), and vacation travel. Subseries is arranged alphabetically.

Subseries B, Education, 1943-1994 (#3.8-5.15, F+D.1-F+D.4), includes report cards, student newspapers, yearbooks, Radcliffe College course work, Harvard University course work, and correspondence. Subseries is arranged by institution, then chronologically.

Series II, PROFESSIONAL, 1970-1994 (#5.16-14.14, F+D.5), includes materials relating to King's work with professional committees and advisory boards; conferences; speeches and talks on the topic of collecting women's documents; syllabi and notes for teaching history at Wellesley College; King's published writings; and correspondence, scrapbooks and materials relating to international travels to Israel, Turkey, and Thailand. King's records of the National Council for Research on Women board files contain memos, reports, grant reports, and meeting minutes sent to Council Board Members, Executive Committee, Development Committee, and Council Member Center Directors. The majority of memos were sent from Mary Ellen Capek, executive director. The series is arranged alphabetical by topic, then chronologically.

Series III, FAMILY, 1882-1993 (#14.15-18.14, F+D.6-F+D.7, PD.3-PD.5), includes correspondence, diaries, photograph albums, genealogies, and other personal papers kept by King's father Donald Knox Miller and her grandfather Andrew R. Miller. One diary may have belonged to Nettie E. Patterson, the half sister of LaNora "Lena" Patterson Miller.

Andrew R. Miller's diaries are all small, pocket, yearly diaries with short daily entries. Most diaries include shorthand. Entries may comment on weather; prayer meetings; office activities; weddings; letters received and sent; children's activities such as hair cuts, music recitals, studio portrait appointments, school events; and news items such as the Spanish-American War in 1898, the sinking of the Titanic on April 15, 1912, and World War I from 1914 to 1918.

There are two types of LaNora "Lena" Miller's diaries: four small, pocket, yearly diaries and two five-year daily diaries. Entries may comment on letters received and sent; activities and outings with her daughters; friends and family visits; dinner guests; chores; special outings; and list of family and friend's addresses. Most entries remark on daily activities and some are more thoughtful: "Mother died 8 years ago. I thought about her all night because I couldn't sleep" (October 15, 1931).

The series is arranged alphabetically, and then chronologically.

Series IV, SCRAPBOOKS AND PHOTOGRAPH ALBUMS, 1864, ca.1889-1990 (#18.15-20.6, 24FB.1v-24FB.3v, 25F+B.1-25F+B.12, 26F+B.1-26F+B.6), includes "Family Album" scrapbooks maintained by Donald Miller from 1919 to 1988, documenting his wife and two children and his three sisters and their families. It also contains scrapbooks Patricia Miller King kept from 1946 to 1990, documenting her childhood, junior and senior high schools, Radcliffe College, and her tenure at the Schlesinger Library. For preservation purposes, magnetic self-adhesive scrapbook albums were photocopied to document their original arrangement and then disassembled. Clippings and duplicate items were not retained. The series is arranged alphabetically, and then by numbered albums.

The following Miller family members are included in each of the photograph albums and scrapbooks marked "Family albums": Andrew Richard Miller (1869-1928) married LaNora "Lena" Patterson (1870-1959) in 1896 and they had four children. The eldest, Helen Marie Miller (1897-ca.1997) married David Plough and had one daughter, Marjorie Plough Sterritte. Roxanne LaGrange Miller (1899-1986) married Curtis Robertson and had two daughters, Dorane Robertson Celentano and Virginia "Jinny" Robertson Heckert. Donald Knox Miller (1905-1989) married Amy Beatrice "Trecie" Heyliger and had two children, Patricia Miller King and Donald Knox Miller, Jr. Miriam Lucille Miller (1903-1979) married Charles Tobias "Toby" Plough and had three children, Charles Tobias "Toby" Plough, Jr., Carolyn Plough Lyon, and Ronald Curtis Plough.

Some photographs in this collection are or will be cataloged in VIA, Harvard University's Visual Information Access database. Others, referred to as "uncataloged" photographs, are not of sufficient research interest to warrant cataloging and are simply treated as part of the documents they accompany; they are marked on the back with an asterisk in square brackets [*].

BIOGRAPHY

Patricia Ann Miller was born July 26, 1937, in Brooklyn, New York, the eldest child of Amy Beatrice "Trecie" Heyliger and Donald Knox Miller. Her father grew up in Brooklyn, New York, the only boy in a family of four children. His father, Andrew Richard Miller, was a private secretary to the president of a engineering and construction firm in downtown Manhattan. After graduating Amherst College in 1927 and Columbia University Law School in 1930, Donald Miller spent his early career working in several law firms. In 1948 he was hired as an assistant to the president at the American Express Field Warehousing Corporation and was promoted to Executive Vice President in 1956. Donald Miller died in January 1989 of a ruptured aneurysm of the aorta.

Growing up in Westfield, New Jersey, "Patsy" Miller attended Westfield High School from 1953 to 1955. She was active on the student newspaper, Westfield Hi's Eye, receiving the "best high school press writer" award during the 1954 Scholastic Press Association of New Jersey's Journalism Day. As an undergraduate at Radcliffe College, she majored in history, receiving her A.B., magna cum laude, in 1959. She focused on French history as a graduate student at Harvard University. She received her doctorate in history in 1970, writing her dissertation on the 12th century archbishop of Rouen, Hugh d'Amiens.

In September 1958, while still an undergraduate, Pat married Allan Brewster King, Jr., a Harvard University Law student who later became an Episcopal priest. Their only child, Victoria Elizabeth King, was born May 13, 1960, in Cambridge, Massachusetts. After her divorce from King in the mid-1970s, Pat met Dr. Samuel W. Stein, a cardiologist, at one of her daughter's ice skating competitions. They were married in January 1978 until his death in May 1988.

Although a French medievalist by training, King had been involved with the Schlesinger Library since her graduate school days when she worked at the Women's Archives (the predecessor to the Schlesinger Library) as a research assistant. In 1973 she was hired as Director and over the next twenty years she work diligently to expand the Schlesinger Library and its holdings. In a 1993 letter Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., wrote to King, "The Schlesinger Library has played a central role in lifting what my father seventy years ago called, 'the pall of silence' that historians had placed over the achievements and services of American women -- and you, dear Pat, have played a central role in driving the Library forward into greater achievements and services of its own." (#10.15).

With all her dedication to the library, King also found time to work with many related professional organizations. She was active with the National Council for Research on Women, serving as chair of the board of directors; she was an associate editor of American National Biography; and she was a member of the Massachusetts Historical Society and the American Antiquarian Society. As head of a women's history library, King sought out opportunities to assist other related international libraries and organizations. In 1987 she was one of fourteen women invited to join the Women's Study Mission to Israel; in 1991 she traveled to Istanbul, Turkey to participate in the "International Symposium of Women's Libraries;" and in 1993 she traveled to Thailand to conduct an oral history workshop at Chulalongkorn University. Based on her overseas travels, Pat envisioned an international conference at Radcliffe where women historians, librarians, and archivists from around the globe could be connected. Although she did not live long enough to see its realization, the conference "Women, Information, and the Future: Collecting and Sharing Resources World Wide" (June 1994), was dedicated to her efforts.

Patricia Miller King died on May 3, 1994, the result of complications of lung cancer. Her tenure as Director will be remembered for developing the Schlesinger Library into one of the nation's foremost centers for women's history.

ARRANGEMENT

The collection is arranged in four series:

  1. Series I. Biographical and personal, 1937-1994 (#1.1-14.14, FD.1, F+D.1-F+D.4, PD.1-PD.2)
  2. ___Subseries A. Biographical and personal, 1937-1994 (#1.1-3.7, FD.1, PD.1-PD.2)
  3. ___Subseries B. Education, 1943-1994 (#3.8-5.15, F+D.1-F+D.4)
  4. Series II. Professional, 1970-1994 (#5.16-14.14, F+D.5)
  5. Series III. Family, 1882-1993 (#14.15-18.14, F+D.6-F+D.7, PD.3-PD.5)
  6. Series IV. Scrapbooks and photograph albums, 1864, ca.1889-1990 (#18.15-20.6, 24FB.1v-24FB.3v, 25F+B.1-25F+B.12, 26F+B.1-26F+B.6)

Physical Location

Collection stored off site: researchers must request access 36 hours before use.

Immediate Source of Acquisition

Accession numbers: R93-6, 94-M107, 94-M144, 2000-M142, 2008-M40

The papers of Patricia Miller King were given by her daughter, Victoria Elizabeth King, between 1994 and 2000. King's Radcliffe course work was donated to the Radcliffe College Archives in 1993 and later transferred to this collection. Diary entries tracking King's health were found on computer disks and were printed for addition to this collection in 2008.

Related Material:

There is related material at the Schlesinger Library; see Records of the National Council for Research on Women (U.S.), 1978-1989 (90-M152) and the Records of the Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America, 1942-2011 (RG XVII, series 2.4).

SEPARATION RECORD

Any records of the Schlesinger Library found in the collection were removed and transferred to the Records of the Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America, 1942-2011 (RG XVII, series 2.4) as accession R2012-CR2.

Processing Information

Processed: April 2012

By: Jessica Tanny, with assistance from Suzanna Calev.

Title
King, Patricia Miller. Papers of Patricia Miller King, 1864, 1882-1994: A Finding Aid
Author
Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America
Language of description
eng
Sponsor
Processing of this collection was made possible by the Mary Mitchell Wood Manuscript Processing Fund.
EAD ID
sch01375

Repository Details

Part of the Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute Repository

The preeminent research library on the history of women in the United States, the Schlesinger Library documents women's lives from the past and present for the future. In addition to its traditional strengths in the history of feminisms, women’s health, and women’s activism, the Schlesinger collections document the intersectional workings of race and ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and class in American history.

Contact:
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