Olive Beaupre’ Miller

Olive Kennon Beaupré was born in Aurora, Illinois on September 11, 1883, to William S. and Julia (Brady) Beaupré. She received her B.A. from Smith College in 1904 and returned to Aurora to work as an English teacher at East Aurora High School. In 1907, Miller married Harry Miller, a former textbook salesman. In 1912, the Millers moved to Chicago where their daughter Virginia Beaupré Miller was born on December 30th.

Miller had been writing “a real American novel,” but abandoned the enterprise when, engrossed in her writing, she missed baby Virginia’s feeding by two hours. Shaken by her carelessness, she burned the novel as a “noble sacrifice on the altar of motherhood .”

She did however compose rhymes and jingles to amuse Virginia. The P. F. Vollard Company of Chicago published three volumes of her poetry. Encouraged by the books’ success,  the Millers founded a publishing company, The Book House for Children, in 1919. The company printed popular children’s stories edited by Miller to meet her standards and they were sold by subscription door-to-door.

On May 8 of the same year Miller had her second child, John, who died shortly after he was born.  Miller published the first volume of the My Book House series in 1920 and set to work on the next five volumes. My Book House became the first collection of children's literature which was graded to meet the developing needs and abilities of children at different ages.

Unusual for the times, the Book House for Children employed a staff of primarily women. In the 1920’s, job opportunities for women were fairly limited, but the company hired an all-women sales force, and women managed its branch offices nationwide.

The first My Bookhouse, a six-volume series, was beautifully decorated with full-color cover illustrations, endpapers, and pictures painted by famous artists. The books were sold in sets packaged in cardboard houses. Later, for special promotions, sets were presented in wooden houses. Today the houses are highly prized by collectors.

Illustrators for the series included Maude and Miska Petersham, Donn Philip Crane, Hilda Hanway, Milo Winter, and Peter Newell.  Another collection, My Travelship, was a three-volume set that introduced readers to children of other lands through folktales and literature.

Miller began publishing the nine-volume series A Picturesque Tale of Progress in 1929, and in 1934 she revised My Book House, expanding the series from six volumes to twelve.

The Book House for Children was sold to United Educators in 1954, and moved in 1955 to Tangley Oaks at Lake Bluff, Illinois. Miller remained Chairman of the Board in an advisory capacity until she retired in 1962. She moved to Tucson, Arizona where she lived with her daughter Virginia (Miller) Read and family until her death on March 25, 1968.