647 East Dayton Street
Madison, WI, USA

Miller House (Madison, Wisconsin)

The Miller House is a historic house at 647 E. Dayton Street in Madison, Wisconsin. The house was moved to its current location in 1908 by William and Anna Mae Miller, a Black couple who ran a rooming house in the building and later lived there with their family. It is the oldest surviving Black-owned building in Madison. The house is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.


Description
The Miller House is located at 647 East Dayton Street within the East Dayton Street Historic District. It is a two-story building with Greek Revival and Italianate influences. Part of the original house was removed when it was relocated to Dayton Street, and the back of the house may have once been a separate building. The house's design includes a front porch with a double entrance, floor-to-ceiling windows, and a wooden staircase and fireplace mantel. Asbestos siding was added to the exterior in the mid-twentieth century. Developer Randall Alexander renovated the house in 1986 by removing the new siding, rebuilding the original porches, and conducting additional maintenance on the dilapidated structure.


History
The house was originally built in 1853 at a corner spot on Pinckney and Johnson Streets in Madison. It was moved to its current location in 1908 by William Miller, an aide to U.S. Senator Robert M. La Follette, and his wife Anna Mae. The Millers helped establish a small Black neighborhood on East Dayton Street in the 1900s, one of the first in Madison. William cofounded a African Methodist Episcopal church on Dayton Street in 1902, was the Wisconsin contact for the NAACP, and was a member of the Niagara Movement. Anna Mae established a Black literary club in Madison in 1909 and went on to be a founding member of Madison's chapter of the NAACP. The Miller family initially used the house at 647 East Dayton as a rooming house for Black migrants to Madison; it was one of three houses owned by the family on East Dayton and the only one which is still standing. The family moved into the house in 1919; while William died the following year, Anna Mae lived in the house until her death in 1963, and their daughter Lucile kept the house in the family until 1978.

The house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on November 8, 1979, and on the State Register of Historic Places in 1989.

National Register of Historic Places - Miller House (Madison, Wisconsin)

Statement of Significance:

The eligibility of the Miller House for the National Register is due, primarily, to its locally significant historical association with the William and Anna Mae Miller family, a prominent black middle-class family long active in the improvement of the social conditions of black people. The earliest known of black-owned buildings in Madison, part of the building’s ‘significance is related to its use as a rooming house (1908-1919) under the Millers' ownership and prior to its use for their residence. As a rooming house, the building housed new arrivals to Madison's black community, who emigrated from the south seeking greater freedoms and opportunities.

William Miller, who is credited as being the major influence in the growth of the East Dayton Street vicinity as a black neighborhood, and his wife were two of several key figures in the social development of Madison's growing black community in the early decades of this century. Their educational backgrounds matched with their political commitment would have placed them among W.E. B. DuBois 1 "talented tenth" whose skills were called upon by other national Negro leaders to assist the "uplifting" of the race to its rightful place in the American social and economic scene. The Millers were early arrivals to Madison at a time when racial tensions and social unrest were aggravated by lynchings, and segregation and disenfranchisement legislation which precipitated a mass migration to the northern states. They, with their family, have worked toward the advancement of the black people through participation in the organization and development of local and national institutions, the improvement of housing opportunities in Madison and by lobbying against discriminatory policies and legislation.

Born in Richmond, Kentucky in 1872, William Miller received a liberal education from Berea College in Berea, Kentucky, after which he attended law school in Chicago. Berea College, at that time, was one of the few integrated colleges in the United States. In 1900 or 1901 while working at a summer job waiting tables at the Plankinton House in Milwaukee, he met Robert M. La Follette, Sr. who invited him to come to Madison to work as the messenger to the Governor. Miller accepted the appointment.

Miller's participation in the Madison Negro community and in the development of his neighborhood began shortly after he took up residency at John Turner's rooming house at 118 North Blount Street. In 1902, Miller, Turner and others organized the African Methodist Episcopal Church, acquired a building and moved it to 625 East Dayton Street, near Turner's house. The A. M. E. Church had often served in other communities as an advocate of Negro rights. In 1904, Miller and his bride, nee Anna Mae Stewart, bought a cottage at 645 East Dayton Street and a house at No. 643, although they soon moved into the latter. Miller, once described as "a quiet and unassuming man," encouraged several friends and church members to buy lots and homes in the proximity of the church over the following years. Miller may have proclaimed the advantages of Negro ownership of neighborhood housing, but he never exhorted a similar ownership clustering in the white neighborhoods in which he owned property. This was a point of disagreement with Anna Mae, who later regretted their location, in line with her belief for integrated housing.

Prior to the Millers' arrival, the black population in Madison, numbering fewer than eighty people, was somewhat dispersed. Simultaneous with the growth of the East Dayton Street enclave, a more populous black neighborhood developed near the West Madison railroad depots in the east end of the Greenbush Addition, however, that neighborhood was obliterated by the "Triangle" redevelopment of the 1960's. Most of the homes of these neighborhoods were moved from older parts of the city to the inexpensive marsh lands being filled in close proximity to the employment provided by the railroads and industries.

The Millers commitments to their children, to their political ideologies and, consequently, to staying in Madison were indicated, in 1905, by declining La Follette's offer for them to accompany the senator-elect to Washington, D. C. where the schools were segregated.

William Miller's active involvement in local and national affairs testifies to his commitment to the improvement of the Negro situation. He became a member of the Niagara Movement (1905-1908), participated in the development of the NAACP by serving as the Wisconsin contact, and was a financial backer of the forerunner of the CRISIS, the NAACP publication. His admiration for the outspoken leader of the Negro intelligentsia, writer, and CRISIS editor.

W.E. B. DuBois led him to name a son in honor of him and to have him as a guest in his home upon several occasions. A leader in the St. Paul A.M.E. Church, Miller served as a trustee and steward since its founding. He was also a member of the Capital City Lodge No. 2 of the Prince Hall Free and Accepted Masons, and was serving his nineteenth year as the messenger to the governor at the time of his death in April 1920. His commitment to his political ideals is well illustrated by an incident shortly before his death which followed a long illness. .. "on election day, too weak to go to the polls, he insisted on being carried from his bed to the polls in order that he might vote for the La Follette delegates."" His funeral was attended by Senator La Follette *J who came from Washington for the occasion

Anna Mae Miller received an education and experience which prepared her for the social reform activities which she pursued, for the most part, in organizations in which she often served as an organizer and an officer. Born in Stanford, Kentucky in 1877, she attended Knoxville College and the Kentucky State Normal in Frankfort and taught at the Kentucky State Reformatory. She met William Miller at his college graduation ceremony, although it was not until 1903, after three years of engagement, that they were married.

Mrs. Miller played a major role in the education of the six Miller children. In communicating to them her social and political beliefs and values regarding racial equality, educational achievement and social etiquette, she displayed a disdain for the values frequently held by lower class Negroes and white supremist. This was evidenced by her reluctance to enroll her children in the public schools though they did attend Lincoln School which served many families at the upper end of the income scale. The Millers spent their summers at a cottage near the intersection of old Sun Prairie Road (East Washington Avenue) and Fair Oaks Avenue in order to avoid the questionable education that the children might receive on the streets during the summer. Although her children were young at the time of the death of their father, Anna Mae managed to raise her family while working as a cook for sororities and fraternities. (It must be remembered that blacks were not allowed to teach in Madison until only a few years before "Black Liberation" became a national call.)

Anna Mae Miller's commitments beyond those of her family involved a dedication to community groups and social causes. In the fall of 1909, she organized the Book Lovers Club, a literary society, fully ten years before the Harlem Renaissance began to foster a widespread awareness and appreciation of the Negro contribution to the arts. Through participation in recitations of poetry and song, the presentation of essays and the discussion of political writings and current topics, the club intended to engender awareness of the accomplishments of the Negro in American society and encourage self-betterment. By the following summer the club stopped meeting due to the departure of key members. The club included among its educated membership Mr. Jarius Anthony Josey who, in 1917, rose to prominence as the founder and editor of Wisconsin’s first black newspaper, the Wisconsin weekly blade.

Mrs. Miller was involved in other organizations as well. In about 1910, she was a charter member of the local chapter No. 66 of the Order of the Eastern Star, for a black membership then^ affiliated with the Illinois lodge. ^ She was a member of the Madison Council of United Church Women and of the Minnie Brown Missionary Society for which she had served as president. She also became a founding member and long-time treasurer of the Madison chapter of the NAACP, in 1943, and remained active in the A.M.E. Church and in racial advancement causes until her death in February 1963.

Lucile, the Millers' first child, born in 1904, also became active in local matters. After leaving high school in 1924, she began working as a clerk in stores and gardening to earn a living while continuing her education through night classes at the University and the Adult Vocational School. Around 1930, she initiated discussion with Zoe Bayliss, Assistant to the Dean of Women, concerning the closed housing policy of the University of Wisconsin. A meeting with other representatives of the Negro community ensued and within a year the dormitories were opened to. Negro students. 14 In 1942, she and friend Demetra Shivers formed the Madison Negro Civic League to campaign against the segregation of the USO at the Truax Air Force Base. Their efforts led to the re -organization, in 1943, of the local chapter of the NAACP. Lucile Miller, a pacifist and progressive, also served as the Second Ward Precinct Committeeman for the renewed Democratic Party in the late 1940's, worked on the Monona Terrace Committee in the late 1950 f s and early 1960's, served on the NAACP Housing Committee and participated with her mother in supporting State fair housing legislation in the early I960 's.

Lucile Miller lived in the house at 647 East Dayton Street from the time that her family first occupied it in the fall of 1919 until December, 1978, the third of the Miller residences on the block and the only one extant.