Harry Alvin Millis (May 14, 1873 – June 25, 1948) was an American civil servant, economist, and educator and who was prominent in the first four decades of the 20th century. He was a prominent educator, and his writings on labor relations were described at his death by several prominent economists as "landmarks". Millis is best known for serving on the "first" National Labor Relations Board, an executive-branch agency which had no statutory authority. He was also the second chairman of the "second" National Labor Relations Board, where he initiated a number of procedural improvements and helped stabilize the Board's enforcement of American labor law. Early life Millis was born in May 1873 in Paoli, Indiana. He attended and graduated from Paoli High School. He was heavily involved in athletics in his youth. He enrolled at Indiana University, receiving his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1895 and his Master of Arts in finance in 1896. He was the first graduate student of John R. Commons, the renowned institutional economist. Millis entered the sociology program at the University of Chicago in 1896 but in 1898 he switched to the economics program and received his Ph.D. in economics in 1899. From 1899 to 1902 he was reference librarian at the John Crerar Library, a then-independent, privately owned public library focusing on research and teaching in science, medicine, and technology. In 1901, he married the former Alice May Schoff. The couple had three children: a son, John, and two daughters, Savilla and Charlotte. Alice received her Bachelor of Laws from the University of Cincinnati and her Master of Philosophy from the University of Michigan. He left his position at Crerar Library in 1902 to become professor of economics and sociology at the University of Arkansas. He taught there for only two years. He joined the faculty at Stanford University in 1904 after being appointed assistant professor of economics. While at Stanford, he became friends with the controversial economist Thorstein Veblen, and helped Veblen and his wife find housing at the college. While at Stanford, he met and became friends with the nationally known economists Edwin Robert Anderson Seligman and Thomas Sewall Adams, and in 1907 co-founded the National Tax Association (a nonpartisan organization that fosters the study of tax theory, tax policy, and other areas of public finance). In 1908, he published the article "Business and Professional Taxes as Sources of Local Revenue"