Elsa Shelton Miller Collection
Scope and Contents
The Elsa Shelton Miller Collection contains documents from her life in Asia during the late 1940s and early 1950s. Items in the collection include identification and citizenship documents, a travel visa, Chinese Yuan from the late 1940s, postcards with pictures of Shanghai, and documents regarding Miller’s attempts to gain a visa to the United States in 1950.
Dates
- Creation: 1946-1950
Language of Materials
English Chinese
Conditions Governing Access:
The collection is open for research use.
Conditions Governing Use:
Copyright for unpublished materials authored or otherwise produced by the creator(s) of this collection has not been transferred to California State University, Northridge. Copyright status for other materials is unknown. Transmission or reproduction of materials protected by U.S. Copyright Law (Title 17, U.S.C.) beyond that allowed by fair use requires the written permission of the copyright owners. Works not in the public domain cannot be commercially exploited without permission of the copyright owners. Responsibility for any use rests exclusively with the user.
Biographical Information:
Elsa Shelton Miller was born Elsa Fischer in 1916. She married Jim Shelton, a bar owner in Shanghai, at around the age of 17, but the marriage was short lived. She worked as a stenographer for a variety of employers, including the United States Armed Forces in Peiping, China, and Time Life International in Tokyo. Her brother-in-law, Bob Miller, also worked for Time Life as a reporter, and in 1950 he tried to help her obtain a visa to the United States. As the waiting list for U.S. immigration was prohibitively long, they tried appealing to various contacts, including Senator William F. Knowland, but were unsuccessful. Ultimately, they decided to marry in order to get Elsa a visa. While the marriage was only for convenience and therefore did not last long, it did get Elsa into the United States where she eventually became an American citizen. She passed away in June of 1998.
Full Extent
0.21 Linear Feet (1 box)
Abstract
Elsa Shelton Miller was born in 1916, and lived in China and Japan until the early 1950s. She worked as a stenographer for a variety of employers, including the U.S. forces in Peiping after World War II, and Time Life International in Tokyo. The collection contains documents from Miller’s life in Asia, including identification and citizenship documents, a travel visa, Chinese Yuan from the late 1940s, postcards with pictures of Shanghai, and documents regarding Miller’s attempts to gain a visa to the United States in 1950.
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Janet Augestad, 08/31/2011.
Processing Information:
Jessica Geiser, 2013
- Title
- Guide to the Elsa Shelton Miller Collection
- Date
- 2013-07-10
- Language of description
- Undetermined
- Script of description
- Code for undetermined script
- Language of description note
- English
Repository Details
Part of the Special Collections & Archives Repository
University Library
California State University, Northridge
18111 Nordhoff Street
Northridge CA 91330-8326 USA
818-677-4594
asksca@csun.edu