Bio of MILLER, Harry T. (b.1881), Hennepin Co., MN
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EXTRACTED FROM: History of Minneapolis, Gateway to the Northwest; 
Chicago-Minneapolis, The S J Clarke Publishing Co, 1923; Edited by: Rev. 
Marion Daniel Shutter, D.D., LL.D.; Volume I - Shutter (Historical); 
volume II - Biographical; volume III - Biographical
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Vol II, pg 605-607
HARRY T. MILLER
Entering the employ of the New York Life Insurance Company at the age of
eighteen years, Harry T. Miller has steadily advanced in the service of that
great corporation until he occupies a position of large responsibility as agency
director for his district. His training has been thorough and comprehensive in
each branch of the business and he is splendidly equipped for the large tasks
that devolve upon him in his present connection. He is not only an excellent
executive but a man of broad vision, who studies every phase and angle of the
business and who is constantly actuated by the spirit of progress in all that he
undertakes.
Harry T. Miller is a native son of West Virginia, although the greater part of
his life has been spent on this side of the Mississippi. His birth occurred near
Harrisville, Ritchie county, November 19, 1881, his parents being Henry P. and
Mary S. (Dotson) Miller. The father was born in Selters, Germany, and at the age
of seventeen years, having in the meantime acquired his education in the schools
of his native country, came to the new world in company with his parents and
other relatives, the family home being established in West Virginia. Following
the outbreak of the Civil war he volunteered for service with the Union forces
and enlisted in Company K, Third West Virginia Infantry, where he served for
three years, reenlisting at the end of the term for one year's service in the
Sixth West Virginia Cavalry. He followed milling and farming as a life work and
in 1882 removed with his family from West Virginia to a farm near Blair,
Washington county, Nebraska, where he continued to till the soil until 1887,
enjoying the high regard and goodwill of his fellow citizens by reason of an
upright life and sterling traits of character. His widow, who survives him and
has reached the age of seventy-six years, was born and reared in West Virginia,
where her ancestors were prominent as owners and operators of lumber and flour
mills. The Dotson family was founded in Virginia in colonial times and the
ancestral line is traced back to England, where the name, was spelled Dodson.
The Dotson family has been connected with what is now the state of West Virginia
since 1798 and was represented in the Continental army during the Revolutionary
war. Henry P. and Mary S. (Dotson) Miller became the parents of three sons and
five daughters, all of whom survive the father.
Harry T. Miller of this review, the sixth in order of birth in the family, was
an infant at the time of the removal to Nebraska and was only six years of age
when his father passed away. When he had reached the age of eight the family
left the farm and took up their abode in Omaha, where he attended the public
schools. He lacked about two months of reaching his eighteenth birthday when on
the 18th of September, 1899, he made his initial step into the business world by
securing a clerical position in the Omaha office of the New York Life Insurance
Company. There he remained for two years, at the end of which time he was
transferred to the office of the New York Life Company at Burlington, where he
served as cashier for six months and was then promoted to the cashiership of the
Nebraska branch office of the com­pany. Two years later he was sent to the
general office of the company in Chicago and was in charge of a department there
for three years. His next assignment was to the position of cashier for the
company in St. Paul and after six months he was made cashier of the branch
office at Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where he remained for four years and during that
period was advanced to the position of agency organizer for the state. While
residing in Milwaukee he devoted three years to law study in the night school of
the law department of Marquette University, not with any intention of entering
upon active practice at the bar but for the purpose of gaining a knowledge of
legal principles that might prove of worth and value to him in the conduct of
his business affairs.
Mr. Miller's identification with Minneapolis dates from January 1, 1912, when he
was made agency director for the New York Life in this city, in which position
he has supervision over a large and important field. The volume of business has
been greatly enhanced during his incumbency in this office and something of the
growth of the business is indicated in the fact that when he reopened the agency
(closed since 1905) the Minneapolis branch territory could boast of but two
agents, both of whom were new arid inexperienced salesmen, while today there are
eighty well trained men and women. The secret of his success is not hard to
fathom. Close application, earnest study, mastery of every task and the
continuance until every point has been gained-these are the qualities that have
brought him to a most enviable position in insurance circles of the Northwest.
In the first eleven years the agency wrote a little more than forty-five million
dollars of new business. Starting with two small office rooms, the agency now
occupies two-thirds of the third floor of the New York Life building.
On the tenth anniversary of the opening of the Minneapolis agency for the New
York Life Insurance Company by Mr. Miller, the agents of his branch presented
him with a silver loving cup at the tenth annual agency meeting. The cup was
engraved as follows: "1912-1922. As a token of esteem and appreciation and in
commemora­tion of the tenth anniversary of his able leadership, this cup is
lovingly presented to Mr. Harry T. Miller, agency director of the Minneapolis
branch of the New York Life Insurance Company, by the Minneapolis agency
members" In February, 1923, the members of the agency presented him with a
beautiful gold watch, suitably engraved. Mr. Miller has recently completed
extensive alterations and improvements in the Minneapolis agency headquarters,
making it one of the finest sales agencies in the country.
Mr. Miller's interests are not confined alone to business affairs but that he is
cognizant of the duties and obligations of citizenship and appreciative of the
social amenities of life is indicated in the fact that he is a member of the
Minneapolis Civic & Commerce Association, the Minneapolis Athletic Club, the
Insurance Federation of Minnesota, the Minneapolis Association of Life
Underwriters and the Automobile Club of Minneapolis. In 1917 Mr. Miller was
elected to the presidency of the Minneapolis Association of Life Underwriters
and was reelected in 1918, being the first man ever to be called upon to fill
the presidential chair for a second term. During his term of office he directed
the preparation of the first written code of ethics ever adopted among life
insurance agents. This code was subsequently adopted by the St. Paul association
and the Northwest Congress of Life Underwriters and resulted in the adoption of
a national code of ethics two years later, Mr. Miller being one of a committee
of three to prepare the national code. Mr. Miller urged the members of the Life
Underwriters Association to cooperate with him in eliminating the un­ethical
competitive practices among rival insurance agents, with the result that
Minneapolis is looked upon as an ideal field for the development of men apd
women in life insurance sales work. He also urged the elimination of part-time
agents and paid pluggers in the city of Minneapolis, resulting in the passage of
a resolution by the association which wiped them out forever. Although
associations throughout the country had been striving for this result for
twenty-five years, Minneapolis has the honor of being the first city to attain
it. Mr. Miller succeeded in getting the Minneapolis Life Underwriters to
cooperate with the Young Men's Christian Association in establishing the first
school of life insurance salesmanship ever estab­lished in a Young Men's
Christian Association and he worked for more than a year on this project. The
National Underwriter of February 8, 1923, published the follow­ing:
"Announcement has been made by the National Association of Life Underwriters of
the completion of plans for the operation of the Y. M. C. A. schools of life
insurance salesmanship on a national scope, as outlined by President A. 0.
Eliason in his sales congress speeches through the west. The growth of this
specialty training is traced by the association in its announcement and the
details of the proposed plan, which is put up to the local associations for
definite action, are outlined, a full course of study being given as an example
for the guidance of those undertaking the work. The association's comment on the
growth and scope of the idea is as follows:
STARTED IN MINNEAPOLIS.
'When the joint announcement of the Minneapolis Association of Life Underwriters
and the Minneapolis Y. M. C. A. was made last fall, of the inauguration of a
course in life insurance salesmanship under the direction of the Minneapolis Y,
the news was really of more far-reaching significance than was at first
apparent. For since that time the idea has taken root and is now responsible for
a general movement which is intended to place a course in life insurance
salesmanship in every Y. M. C. A where the support of the local association is
sufficient to make the idea workable and practical. It was through the efforts
of Harry T. Miller, agency director of the New York Life, O. E. Seiler, general
agent of the Phoenix Mutual in Minneapolis, and A. H. Speer, educational
director of the Y. M. C. A., that this course was instituted in the Y's School
of Commerce at Minneapolis.' "
Mr. Miller was appointed assistant to the president of the National Life
Under­writers Association in 1920 and acts on the executive committee of the
Minneapolis association. He has contributed many articles to the insurance press
and has delivered numerous addresses before life underwriters' associations in
various sections of the United States. On January 24, 1923, the Minneapolis Life
Underwriters presented him with a certificate of appreciation at a dinner given
in his honor at the Minneapolis Y. M. C. A.
"certificate.
To Harry T. Miller
In recognition of distinct services through a period of years toward the
betterment of conditions affecting life insurance this token is appreciatively
dedicated by the Minneapolis Association of Life Underwriters.
ROY A. LATHROP, President. C. N. Patterson, Treasurer. January 24, 1923." This
was engrossed and beautifully bound in leather.
Politically Mr. Miller has always been an earnest republican and his cooperation
is given to many plans and projects that look to the greatest good of the city
and the advancement of its welfare.