Perry Miller facts for kids

Perry Gilbert Eddy Miller (born February 25, 1905 – died December 9, 1963) was an American historian. He helped create the field of American Studies, which is the study of American culture and history. Miller focused on the history of early America, especially the colonial Puritans. He taught at Harvard University and changed how people understood the Puritans.

Perry Miller's Early Life

Miller was born in Chicago in 1905. His father, Eben Perry Sturges Miller, was a doctor from Mansfield, Ohio. His mother, Sarah Gertrude Miller, was from Bellows Falls, Vermont.

When he was almost 18, Miller left home. Between 1922 and 1926, he traveled a lot. He worked in California, acted on Broadway, wrote for magazines, and even worked on a cargo ship along the Congo River in Africa.

An Idea in Africa

In 1956, Miller wrote about a special moment he had while in Africa. He was near the Congo River and realized he wanted to study the history of American ideas, especially about the Puritans. He felt it was his mission to explain America's deepest motivations to the world.

He compared this moment to when the famous historian Edward Gibbon decided to write his great book about the Roman Empire. Miller felt a similar strong urge to study the very beginning of American history. He decided that once he was back in school, he would start by studying the Puritan migration to America.

Miller's Education

Perry Miller went to the University of Chicago. He earned his bachelor's degree in 1928. He then completed his Ph.D. (a high-level university degree) in 1931. While there, he was part of the Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity.

Perry Miller's Career

Miller started teaching at Harvard University in 1931. In 1942, he left Harvard to join the United States Army during World War II. He was stationed in Great Britain. He worked for the Office of Strategic Services, which was an intelligence agency. He may have helped create this office. He also worked for the Psychological Warfare Division during the war. In 1943, he was chosen to be a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

After the war ended in 1945, Miller returned to teaching at Harvard. He also taught classes at the Harvard Extension School.

Miller wrote many book reviews and articles. These appeared in magazines like The Nation and The American Scholar. In 1949, he published a book about Jonathan Edwards. Miller suggested that Edwards was like an artist, using religion and theology as his way to express ideas in the 18th century.

Miller's book The Life of the Mind in America was published after he died. He received a Pulitzer Prize for this book. It was meant to be the first part of a ten-book series. Miller also spent a year at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. He received a Guggenheim Fellowship to support his research. He also taught in Japan for a year. In 1956, he was elected to the American Philosophical Society.

In 1987, historian Edmund S. Morgan said that Miller, who was his teacher, did not believe in God.

Miller's Influence on History

Miller's way of looking at religious ideas in Colonial America set a new standard for studying intellectual history. Other historians say that Miller's work has influenced many topics. These include studies about Puritans and discussions about how stories are told in history.

In his most famous book, The New England Mind: The Seventeenth Century (1939), Miller explored the way Puritans thought about the world. He used a cultural approach. Before him, historians often used psychological or economic reasons to explain Puritan beliefs.

Perry Miller's Legacy

At Harvard, Miller guided many students who were working on their Ph.D. degrees. His most famous student was Edmund Morgan, who also won a Pulitzer Prize. Another important historian, Bernard Bailyn, also said Miller influenced him.

The famous author Margaret Atwood dedicated her book The Handmaid's Tale to Perry Miller. Atwood had studied with Miller when she attended Radcliffe College. This was before women were fully admitted to Harvard University.

Perry Miller's Books

• 1933. Orthodoxy in Massachusetts, 1630-1650
• 1939. The New England Mind: The Seventeenth Century
• 1949. Jonathan Edwards
• 1950. The Transcendentalists: An Anthology
• 1953. The New England Mind: From Colony to Province
• 1953. Roger Williams: His Contribution to the American Tradition
• 1954. Religion and Freedom of Thought
• 1954. American Thought: Civil War to World War I
• 1956. Errand into the Wilderness
• 1956. The American Puritans (editor)
• 1957. The American Transcendentalists: Their Prose and Poetry
• 1957. The Raven and the Whale: Poe, Melville and the New York Literary Scene
• 1958. Consciousness in Concord: The Text of Thoreau's Hitherto "Lost Journal"
• 1961. The Legal Mind in America: From Independence to the Civil War
• 1965. Life of the Mind in America: From the Revolution to the Civil War
• 1967. Nature's Nation