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Harry F. Miller began his association with the Edison laboratory at West Orange in 1888, in the office of John F. Randolph, Edison's private secretary. In 1908 he succeeded Randolph as secretary. Miller was also assistant treasurer of the National Phonograph Co. and secretary of the New Jersey Patent Co. He was elected treasurer of Thomas A. Edison, Inc. in 1916, and served as a director of the company.
The documents in the Miller File cover the years 1870-1929, but the major portion dates from the nineteenth century. Most of the material relates to legal matters with which Edison was concerned. The file contains contracts and agreements, assignments and licenses, powers of attorney, insurance policies, stock certificates, corporate minutes, papers relating to litigation, bills and receipts, some pieces of correspondence, and occasional patents and drafts of caveats.
All documents for the years 1870-1878 have been selected except duplicates. The sixty-three documents include contracts, licenses, assignments, and agreements relating to the telegraph, telephone, electric pen and autographic press, phonograph, and electric light.
The Miller File has been re-arranged in chronological order. The archival record group consists of 122 envelopes, each containing several documents. The envelopes are numbered 1 through 180, but some are missing from the sequence. The envelopes are not arranged in chronological or topical order, and the documents within an individual envelope also lackchronological or topical organization.
Similar documents of a legal or quasi-legal nature can be found in the Document File and in other series. Courtesy of Thomas Edison National Historical Park.