Samuel Jefferson Miller was born in Harrison, Ohio, on August 7, 1919, to Monford Leroy Miller and Grace G. Amos. He was the youngest of four children, the others being John, Virginia, and Helen.

Miller graduated from high school in Carrollton, Ohio, in 1937. He enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1941 and was honorably discharged on September 26, 1941. In the early 1940s, Miller taught at several schools in Ohio. He received both his Bachelor of Science in Education (1941) and Master of Science (1947) from Ohio State University and attended Brown University from 1948-1950 where he earned a Ph.D. in history. Miller was a Fulbright Fellow at the University of Strasbourg in 1950-1951 and received a Teacher's Certificate in Social Studies for Secondary School teaching from the University of the State of New York on August 14, 1952.

Miller was a university fellow at Brown University for a year before he assumed a faculty position at Boston College as a history instructor in 1952. He received a fellowship to study at The Leibniz Institute of European History (IEG) in Mainz, Germany in the late 1950s. During his time at Boston College Miller became an Assistant Professor in 1955, Associate Professor in 1959, and full Professor in 1980. He studied and wrote about the religious and intellectual history of Europe and the Ecumenical Movement. Miller retired in 1986.

Miller's works were published in the Catholic Historical Review, Church History, Speculum, Anglican Theological Review, Commonweal, Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, Amen, Le Monde, The Pilot, the Lortz Festschrift, the New Catholic Encyclopedia, and Collier's Encyclopedia.

Miller died in Roslindale, Massachusetts on January 30, 1999 at age 79.

Sources:

"Obituary, Samuel J. Miller, 79," The Boston Globe, 8 February 1999.

Genealogical research materials, box 5, folder 8, Samuel J. Miller papers, BC.1999.022, John J. Burns Library, Boston College.