12/04/91

CONTACT: Stanford University News Service (650) 723-2558

Historian John Miller dies at 83

STANFORD -- John C. Miller, a scholar who specialized in the early history of the United States, died Sunday, Dec. 1, at Stanford University Hospital after a short illness. He was 83.

Miller was a member of the Stanford University history faculty from 1950 until his retirement in 1973. He was the first holder of the Edgar E. Robinson Professorship in United States History, a chair he held from 1953 until his retirement.

His books included Origins of the American Revolution, which was a 1943 Book of the Month Club selection, and Alexander Hamilton, a 1959 biography that won the Commonwealth Club Gold Medal Award for nonfiction.

Miller continued to write after retirement, and his most recent book, Wolf by the Ears: Thomas Jefferson and Slavery, was published in 1977. Among his other books are The Colonial Image, Origins of American Culture, Triumph of Freedom and The Federalist Era - 1789-1801.

Born in Santa Barbara and reared in Seattle, Miller earned his bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees at Harvard University. As a graduate student, he was awarded the Frederick Sheldon Traveling Fellowship and spent a year in Europe and North Africa. He later studied in Holland on a Fulbright grant. He was a member of the Harvard Society of Fellows.

He came to Stanford after 10 years on the faculty of Bryn Mawr College.

Miller and his wife, Gladys Johnson Miller, had two homes, one on the Stanford campus and the other on San Juan Island, Wash.

In addition to his wife, Miller is survived by three sons, Jeffrey B., John H. and Charles A. Miller, and three grandsons.

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