The Life of Adele Rollins Miller

Recently I've been going through some boxes of genealogical files and manuscripts in order to create a finding aid for the material. Most of these are rather dry listings of vital statistics or pages of research notes. But when I came across a box labeled "Ancestry of Henry Clifton, Jr.", what I found inside was altogether different.

A crumbling binder held an assortment of typed and handwritten pages, as well as scrapbooked ephemera, correspondence, and photographs. The manuscript was prepared by Adele Rollins Miller (Clifton) for her son Henry Clifton, Jr. There are sections for her ancestry, her husband's ancestry, her husband and herself, and finally a section on Henry Jr.

Miller was born July 27, 1875. Though her family was rooted in Mahwah, New Jersey, where her grandfather Ezra Miller was a state senator, she was in and out of Brooklyn during her young life. She spent "one or two winters" at 35 South Oxford Street in Fort Greene, attending Lockwood's Academy. Later, she attended the Groschel Conservatory on State Street, as well as the Packer Collegiate Institute, both in Brooklyn Heights.

As I continued to flip through the manuscript, one item in particular caught my eye: an invitation to "the Opening Sale of the Art Students' Exchange" from December 1899. The location was what made me stop for a second look: "Mrs. Käsebier's Studio." Could this be the famous photographer Gertrude Käsebier?

A few pages later, I had my answer: a gorgeous triptych photograph of Adele, taken by Gertrude Käsebier in 1898. It was published in Everybody's Magazine in 1901. Adele wrote underneath, "Taken in Newport, R.I...My first trained gown, pale blue chiffon—had velvet ribbons and rhinestone buckle. I was known that summer as—'The Girl with the Copper-Colored Hair'!" These extra notes from the photograph's subject really bring it to life, giving us details we may otherwise never have known.

Miller also met Chief Iron Tail through Käsebier. He was both famously a subject of Käsebier's portrait photography as well as known for being depicted on the Buffalo nickel. Alongside a newspaper clipping about a tea for Iron Tail and some of his indigenous brethren hosted at Käsebier's studio, Miller writes that he gave her "a piece of his Golden Eagle headdress."

Both Käsebier and Miller studied at Brooklyn's storied art school, Pratt Institute. Käsebier, of course, studied photography, and Miller studied "costume design," or what we would now call fashion design. Miller describes this in her manuscript as her "real work," writing:

As a wee mite, my paper dolls had many small trunk loads of gorgeous creations, but there was no course then in any of the schools which covered this subject, no way of getting at it...When I graduated from Pratt, I looked about for an opening...It is strange how we drift towards our vocation!...After two years of struggle in New York, during which time I lived on my salary (Seven dollars a week at first) I advanced to a fairly good position, won a gold medal in competition for the best American costume design, and finally was sent by my employers to Paris twice a year.

Despite this, she asserts she "never really made anything of my talents," and writes to her son, "You are my one gift to the world!" After marrying Henry Clifton, Sr. in Manhattan in 1908, Miller seems to have given up working, and devoted herself entirely to the domestic sphere. Notably, the section of the manuscript on her own life ends with her marriage.

On May 8th, 1909 Henry Clifton, Jr. was born at the Long Island College Hospital in Brooklyn. Attending the birth was Brooklyn gynecologist Dr. George McNaughton, who served five terms as president of the Medical Society of the County of Kings. After leaving the hospital, the family returned to their apartment at 441 Washington Avenue in Clinton Hill, not far from the Pratt campus. When Henry, Jr. was five weeks old, they posed for this charming family portrait on the roof of their building.

The building was photographed as part of the city's 1940s tax photographs, and appears to still be standing today.

Not long after, the Cliftons left Brooklyn, and so we will leave their story there. I haven't been able to find much else about Miller, though she is mentioned in a finding aid for the Gertrude Käsebier papers at the University of Delaware. Given the scant records of her readily available online, this manuscript may very well be the best insight we have into this interesting life that's interwoven with Brooklyn history.

Stay tuned for the forthcoming finding aid for the genealogical research collection in which this lovely testament to a mother's love will be described among many other genealogical resources.