author
Lewis Miller
An inventive 19th-century businessman and educator, he helped shape both American farm machinery and the early Chautauqua movement. His life connects practical innovation with a lasting interest in education and Sunday school teaching.
0 Audiobooks
About the author
Born in 1829, Lewis Miller was an Ohio businessman, inventor, and philanthropist best known for developing an early successful combine harvester. His work in agricultural machinery made him prominent in the late 1800s and tied his name to a period of fast-moving industrial change in the United States.
Miller was also deeply involved in religious education. He worked with Methodist bishop John Heyl Vincent to found the Chautauqua movement, which began as a training program for Sunday school teachers and grew into a major center for adult education and cultural life.
He died in 1899, but his influence carried on through both industry and education. He is also remembered as the father of Mina Miller, who married Thomas Edison, linking his family to another well-known chapter of American invention.