Henry C. L. Miller Jr. papers

Content Description

This collection contains the wartime diary and scrapbook of Henry C.L. Miller, Jr. of Richmond, Virginia (1901-1980). Henry was born in Lancaster, Pennsylvania on September 17, 1901. He later took a degree in Mechanical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1923 and moved to Richmond in 1937. During the Second World War, Miller served as assistant deputy administrator and a member of the operations committee of the Lend-Lease Administration and a member of the requirements committee of the War Production Board, compiling these papers between 1941 and 1944. The scrapbook contains telegrams, letters, taped-in postcards, and printed memoranda. The correspondence included in the scrapbook is largely friendly correspondence between Miller and Edward Stettinius, Jr., (1900-1949), then the Administrator of the Lend-Lease Administration. Once a University of Virginia attendee, Stettinius served as director of priorities in the Office of Production Management (1941), head of the Lend-Lease program with Great Britain (1942), the undersecretary of state (1943-1944), the secretary of state (1944-1945) and was then appointed U.S. representative to the United Nations (1945-1946). Stettinius’s tone is jovial and highly complementary of Miller in their correspondence. A memorandum dated August 4th, 1942, from Thomas B. McCabe of the Lend-Lease Office states that “Regarding the Miller appointment [as Chief of the Civil Service Requirements Section], I [Stettinius] am delighted.” Stettinius refers to Miller as “Chick” and Stettinius is referred to as “Eddie” by Miller in all their private and Lend-Lease Office-officiated correspondence. Aside from letters with Stettinius, Miller’s scrapbook contains records of his work on the Civil Service Commission from 1941 to 1944, including tipped-in newspaper clippings, daily schedules, travel authorizations, and official internal memoranda. A tipped-in invitation for Edward Stettinius’s farewell dinner from the Lend-Lease Administration is dated October 6, 1943, before his transition to Under Secretary of State. Several tipped-in newspaper clippings at the back of the scrapbook document the work completed by the Lend-Lease Administration and the Civil Service Commission. Miller’s “Service Diary” dated from March 17th, 1943, to November 24th, 1942, includes descriptions of daily work, Miller’s personal thoughts on his work and the war, and descriptions of the places he visited as part of his Lend-Lease work.

Acquisition Type

Gift

Provenance

Gift of Holliday Pulsifer, 15 April 2025.

Language of Description

English

Restrictions Apply

No

Use Restrictions

This collection contains some in-copyright material. Visit our Permissions and Publishing page for more information about use of Special Collections materials. The library can provide copyright information upon request, but users are responsible for making their own determination about lawful use of collections materials.