Miller, Margaret (Margaret Ripley)

Max Carlton Miller (1899-1967) was born February 9, 1899, at Traverse City, Michigan. The Miller family moved to Everett, Washington while Max was a child, and then to a homestead on the Montana prairie. Miller returned to Everett to attend high school and enlisted in the Navy during WWI. Following his discharge, he finished high school and attended the School of Journalism at the University of Washington. At the time he was to graduate, he was at Shelby, Montana covering the Demsey-Gibbons fight which took place July 4, 1923.

Miller then went to Australia and the South Pacific, working as a reporter in Melbourne. In 1924 he returned to America, settling in San Diego, where he was waterfront reporter for the Sun. His dockside experiences became his first book, I Cover the Waterfront, published in 1932. It became a best seller and was make into a motion picture starring Claudette Colbert. Miller wrote twenty seven books in thrity years.

In 1942 Miller rejoined the Navy as an officer. He spent the war years in the South Pacific, part of the time with a friend from Scripps-Howard newpaper days, Ernie Pyle. Miller was recalled for the Korean action. After his release, he returned to La Jolla, near San Diego, where he lived until his death, December 27, 1967.

From the guide to the Max Miller papers, 1927-1967, (Special Collections and University Archives, University of Oregon Libraries)