Ruth Scott Miller (June 19, 1895 – September 14, 1984) was an American violinist, music critic, author, and teacher. She served as music critic for the Chicago Tribune and contributed to American periodicals such as The Saturday Evening Post and The Ladies’ Home Journal. Life Ruth Miller was born Ruth Johnson in Missouri to Pearl Makinson Johnson (1872 –1943), who worked as a dressmaker. In 1902, when Ruth was seven years old, Pearl married James W. Miller a printer; thereafter, Ruth was known as Ruth Miller. A 1916 newspaper article in the Topeka Daily Capital notes that Miller was raised in a musical family, which fostered her early musical education. Her step-father James was the son of George W. Miller, a member of Marshall’s Civic Band. James’s sister, Ona Miller Briefer, was a harpist and singer. Miller initially studied violin with Carlton Wood of Topeka. She learned counterpoint, harmony, and composition from Arthur Olaf Andersen of the American Conservatory of Music and Frederick Stock, music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. In 1911, she furthered her violin studies in Chicago under the tuition of Hugo Kortschak, assistant concertmaster of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Kortschak returned to his native Germany in 1912, and Miller traveled to his home in St. Veit to continue her studies with him, accompanied by her mother. She returned to the United States in 1913, hoping to visit Berlin again in 1915 as a concert soloist. In 1915, she was named a student-artist soloist with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra season at Ravinia. Thereafter, she began teaching violin in Chicago at the Fine Arts Building. In a self profile for the Ladies’ Home Journal, Miller wrote that she dreamed of being a concert violinist from the age of eight: “Yearning to be a musician completely absorbed me for years. It ruled me to the exclusion of all else”. Career Miller was the first female music critic for the Chicago Tribune, writing for the paper from September 1920 to May 1921. The editors of the Chicago Tribune noted that Miller came to their attention through her articles in the Saturday Evening Post. She herself said that the paper “had a lot of readers and wanted a critic who could write for the masses and not for ‘four or five thousand freak music lovers’. So I wrote for the masses and allowed the five thousand music lovers to scream themselves