Scope of collection
The collection consists of family photographs and slides of four generations of the Miller family of Roxbury and Hull, Massachusetts, beginning with Melbourne Parker Miller who emigrated from Nova Scotia. Photographs are mounted on twenty-eight sheets of posterboard; 158 slides are stored in two slide trays.
The slides depict a century in the Miller family history, dating from roughly 1880 to 1980. The photographs are comprised of both formal and informal family portraits; family businesses including Miller's Boat Landing in Allerton, Mass., Miller's Bus, Miller Brother's Furniture and Piano Moving in Roxbury, Mass., and Miller and Lakin Express Transfer; church and business gatherings; and a wedding announcement (1914). There are also slides of postcards from the early 1900s depicting public recreation sites including: Atlantic House, Nantasket Beach, Nantasket Beach and Auto Park, Paragon Park, Bath House and Amusements at Paragon Park, Hull from Paddock's Island, Allerton (Mass.) Bayside Station, and Park Island. More recent photographs of these sites illustrate the changes that occurred in these locations over the years, for example photographs showing construction of condominiums.
These images were displayed in an exhibit entitled "Trying to Live the American Dream" (1986, Wheeler Gallery) prepared by Robert Parker Miller, then a student at the University of Massachusetts and a member of the Miller family.
