Harold Miller, a retired publishing executive, died on December 25, 2012. After his freshman year at Central College in Iowa ended in 1942, he decided to join the war effort and enlisted in the Marine Corps. He qualified for the V-12 College Training Program through the Marines, and he was sent to Franklin and Marshall College. He was soon sent from there to officer training school for the Navy at Cornell University and then to Camp Elliot in California, after which he was involved in several key invasions in the Pacific Theater. He left military service in 1946 and completed his B.A. at Franklin and Marshall in 1947 and his master’s in history at Columbia University in 1948. After teaching history in high school for a short period in New Jersey, he was recruited to join the well-known publishing firm Houghton Mifflin Company. There he worked his way up through the ranks, beginning as a sales manager and ending as the company’s chairman, CEO, and president from 1973 to his retirement in 1990. During his tenure, Houghton Mifflin expanded greatly in the elementary, high school, college, testing, and trade markets, solidifying its already long and distinguished reputation. In his retirement, Harold Miller’s focus turned to capturing the history of the publishing business and Houghton Mifflin in particular. He conducted oral histories with over 120 authors, editors, managers, and other people associated with the firm and the publishing industry. In 2003, he published a history of the company from World War II through 1990 called Publishing: A Leap from Mind to Mind. A former AAS Councilor, he also served on a variety of boards, including those of the Association of American Publishers, Babson College, Bank of New England, Franklin and Marshall College, and Simmons College, among many others.
Lincoln, MA
United States