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Guide to the Joaquin and Juanita Miller Collection
H2007.4
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Title: Joaquin and Juanita Miller collection
Dates: 1878-1941
Collection number: H2007.4
Creator:
Miller, Joaquin, 1837-1913
Creator:
Miller, Juanita Joaquina, 1880-1970
Collection Size:
2 boxes
Repository:
Claremont Colleges. Library. Special Collections, Honnold/Mudd Library.
Claremont, CA 91711
Abstract: The collection contains correspondence, photographs, printed
materials, and manuscript materials from 1878-1941. Among the manuscript material is an
unpublished manuscript titled �When I was Emperor.� All of the photographs are of Joaquin
Miller, some accompanied by his daughter and Dr. Frederick Cook.
Physical location: Please consult repository.
Languages: Languages represented in the collection: English
Collection open for research.
All requests for permission to publish must be submitted in writing to Special
Collections.
[Identification of item], Joaquin and Juanita Miller collection. Special Collections,
Honnold/Mudd Library, Claremont University Consortium.
Purchased with John Kemble Western Americana Fund, 2007.
Cincinnatus Hiner (not Heine) Miller, better known by his pen-name, Joaquin Miller, American
poet and journalist (1837-1913), was born near Liberty, Indiana.
His father, a Quaker schoolmaster brought the family west in 1852, settling in Oregon, where
young Miller received a cursory education. When he was seventeen he set out for California and
lived among the Indians and in mining camps. This was a period of highly colored adventuring and
lasted until 1858 when he returned to Oregon and completed his education at Columbia: College in
Eugene. After an interval as pony-express rider, Miller became a newspaper editor, in Eugene, in
1862 and 1863. It was at this time that he began to write verse. His first volume of poems was
published at his own expense in 1868. In 1870, after visiting the eastern states, Miller went to
England, posing as a romantic Wild West figure and budding genius. He was lucky enough to be
sponsored by Tom Hood and to have his Songs of the Sierras published by Longmans. Overnight he
became the "literary lion" of London. He "had it made." A compulsive traveler, Joaquin Miller
wrote as he went, profusely--in prose and in verse--describing places visited, the life and
character of the people and the political aspects of the time. His wanderings carried him to
Europe, up, down and across the United States, to Canada, the Klondike, Mexico, China and Japan.
When the real-estate boom of the late eighties brought new life to the west, Miller returned
to California to establish a permanent base. He bought one hundred acres in the hills above
Oakland and built a house and guest cottages which he called "The Hights" [sic.] and began to be
accepted as one of the California circle of writers which included Ina Coolbrith, Bret Harte,
Charles Warren Stoddard, Prentice Mulford, Edmond Clarence Stedman, George Sterling, Jack
London, Samuel L. Clemens, and others.
In his later years "the poet of the Sierras" became something of a legend, but his fame was
based perhaps more on Joaquin the personality, than on Joaquin the writer of memorable
verse.
Scope and Content of Collection
The collection contains correspondence, photographs, printed materials, and manuscript
materials from 1878-1941. Among the manuscript material is an unpublished manuscript titled
�When I was Emperor.� All of the photographs are of Joaquin Miller, some accompanied by his
daughter and Dr. Frederick Cook.
The collection has been arranged into 4 series: Series 1. Correspondence Series 2. Printed
materials and ephemera Series 3. Manuscripts Series 4. Photographs
The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the
library's online public access catalog.
Miller, Joaquin, 1837-1913
Miller, Juanita Joaquina, 1880-1970
Frontier and pioneer life -- West (U.S.)
Honnold/Mudd Library has two additional collections of Joaquin Miller materials: Joaquin
Miller Collection, H1938.1 A royal highway of the world manuscript by Joaquin Miller; and other
items associated with Joaquin Miller, H2007.3