Isidore Miller

**Isidore Miller** (10 June 1884 - June 1966) was the father of the famous prolific Pulitzer Prize winning American playwright and essayist, Arthur Asher Miller, who became the final husband of the famous Hollywood star, Marilyn Monroe. Isidore's youngest child became the famous actress Joan Copeland, and she married a brilliant engineer and college Dean, from a wealthy extensive family of highly accomplished business owners, doctors, lawyers and professors in nearby Nassau County, Long Island.

### Relatives

**Wife:** Augusta Barnett
**Children:** Arthur Miller, and Joan Copeland,
**Daughters-in-law:** Marilyn Monroe, Mary Slattery, and Inge Morath
**Son-in-law:** George J. Kupchik
**Grandchildren:** Jane Miller, Rebecca Miller, Daniel Miller, Robert A Miller, and Eric Kupchik,
**Grandsons-in-law:** Daniel Day-Lewis, and Tom Doyle
**Great-Grandsons:** Gabriel-Kane Day-Lewis, Ronan Day-Lewis, and Cashel Blake Day-Lewis,

### Occupation

wealthy owner of a women's clothing manufacturing business employing 400,
Austrian Jewish immigrant (formerly)

## Biography

### Early Life

Isidore was an Austrian Jewish immigrant, and his wife Augusta was born in New York, to Austrian Jewish parents. The couple lived through the 1920 census in Harlem, Manhattan, New York City.

Isidore was born and raised in the Polish shetl of Radomizl. Isidore's father's real name was Shmuel, which he Americanized to Samuel on immigration.

Isidore, the youngest child of seven, was the last to immigrate, as his father raised money for each of them. Isidore lived in Poland first with an uncle who soon died, and then with numerous other relatives.

In 1891 at age six Isidore arrived on the ship *Clearwater*, and was met by his ten-year old brother Abe.

The family lived in a small apartment on Stanton St. in the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Isidore briefly attended school, but at age 12 he started work operating a sewing machine at his father's business, S. Miller and Sons.

In 1911 his father arranged Isidore's marriage to Augusta, the daughter of a fellow manufacturer, Louis Barnett. Augusta was seven years younger than Isidore.

Isidore's son Arthur Asher Miller was born on October 17, 1915, in Harlem, in the New York City borough of Manhattan, the second of three children.

Isidore soon became a wealthy owner of a women's clothing manufacturing business employing 400, and then at the peak, as many as 800 people.

After the 1918 end of World War I, Isidore Miller broke away from his father, to start his own business of women's clothing, the Miltex Coat and Suit Company. He employed over 800 people, including members of Augusta's family, his brothers-in-law Manny Newman and Lee Balsam.

The family, including his younger daughter Joan Miller, lived on West 110th Street in Manhattan, and owned a summer house in Far Rockaway, Queens, and employed a chauffeur.

In the Wall Street Crash of 1929, and then the subsequent Depression. the family lost almost everything and moved to the modest Gravesend, Brooklyn, southwestern Long Island. By 1936 the business finally closed down for good.

As a teenager, Arthur Miller delivered bread every morning before school to help the family.

Arthur graduated in 1932 from Abraham Lincoln High School, Arthur worked at several menial jobs to pay for his college tuition, at the University of Michigan.

## References

1. ↑ \* 1920 census, Manhattan Assembly District 17, New York, New York
2. ↑ article on his son, Arthur Miller
3. ↑ \* 1930 census, Brooklyn (Districts 1251-1500), Kings, New York