May Merrill Miller (1894–1975) was an American woman writer best known for her novel ''First the Blade'' which offers a unique view of the domestic life of California pioneers as well as on the

Mussel Slough Tragedy The Mussel Slough Tragedy was a shootout over disputed land titles between settlers and the Southern Pacific Railroad (SP). It took place on May 11, 1880, on a farm located northwest of Hanford, California, in the central San Joaquin Valley. Se ...

Life and work

Miller was born in 1894 in

Hanford, California Hanford is the most populous city and the county seat of Kings County, California, located in the San Joaquin Valley region of the greater Central Valley (California), Central Valley. The population was 57,990 at the 2020 United States census, ...

. Growing up the granddaughter of early California pioneers, Miller was privy to many stories of the earliest California settlers. Consequently, she gained an intimate understanding of the early southern San Joaquin landscape and the domestic life of those pioneers who settled there. Miller attended the

University of California The University of California (UC) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university, research university system in the U.S. state of California. Headquartered in Oakland, California, Oakland, the system is co ...

and the

University of Minnesota The University of Minnesota Twin Cities (historically known as University of Minnesota) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul, Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint ...

and participated in the prestigious

Bread Loaf Writers' Conference The Middlebury Bread Loaf Writers' Conference is an author's conference held every summer at the Bread Loaf Inn, near Bread Loaf Mountain, east of Middlebury, Vermont. Founded in 1926, it has been called by ''The New Yorker'' "the oldest and most ...

hosted by

Middlebury College Middlebury College is a Private university, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Middlebury, Vermont, United States. Founded in 1800 by Congregationalism in the United States, Congregationalists, Middlebury w ...

. At this conference, she studied with the western historian and novelist

Bernard DeVoto Bernard ('' Bernhard'') is a French and West Germanic masculine given name. It has West Germanic origin and is also a surname. The name is attested from at least the 9th century. West Germanic ''Bernhard'' is composed from the two elements ''ber ...

and subsequently converted the various stories she heard growing up into a unified novel. The resulting novel, ''First the Blade'', was published in 1938. It depicts the daily life of Californian pioneers from the perspective of a fictional woman settler. The novel also includes a fictionalized account of the Mussel Slough gunfight that resulted from a land dispute between local pioneer settlers and the

Southern Pacific Railroad The Southern Pacific (or Espee from the railroad initials) was an American Railroad classes#Class I, Class I Rail transport, railroad network that existed from 1865 to 1996 and operated largely in the Western United States. The system was oper ...

. The novel has been praised for its unique female perspective on pioneer life as well as for its verisimilitude and detailed realism. In 1949, Miller published a book of poetry entitled ''Mother Lode, 1849 to 1949''.

Legacy

The

University of California, Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Its academic roots were established in 1881 as a normal school the ...

, awards the May Merrill Miller award in alternate years to an undergraduate for work in fiction or poetry.

References

External links

*Short radio episodes from ''First the Blade'' at California Legacy Project:
"Wildflowers"

{{DEFAULTSORT:Miller, May Merrill 1894 births 1975 deaths University of Minnesota alumni 20th-century American novelists American women novelists 20th-century American women writers People from Hanford, California Novelists from California American women poets 20th-century American poets Poets from California