Est. 1928 · Women's Suffrage · Pennsylvania Political History · University History · Performing Arts
Emma Guffey Miller (1874–1970) spent nearly a century shaping both Pennsylvania politics and Slippery Rock University's physical campus. The daughter of an oil, gas, and coal businessman, she graduated from Bryn Mawr College in 1899, taught briefly, then married Carroll Miller during a five-year residence in Japan. Back in Pennsylvania, she became one of the principal organizers of the Pennsylvania Federation of Democratic Women in the 1920s.
In 1924, Miller became the first woman in American history to receive votes for a presidential nomination at a Democratic National Convention, delivered in a seconding speech for Alfred E. Smith in which she denounced the Ku Klux Klan. She served as Democratic National Committeewoman from Pennsylvania from 1932 until her death — a tenure of nearly four decades — and later chaired the National Woman's Party, where she championed an Equal Rights Amendment. Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman both counted her as a reliable ally.
At Slippery Rock, her influence on the physical plant was tangible: she used her connections in Harrisburg to secure state funding for eight buildings between 1928 and 1939. The university eventually named its primary performing arts space in her honor. Before she died of a heart attack on February 23, 1970, in Grove City, Pennsylvania, she had donated her wardrobe to the theater department. Those garments are still housed in a backstage storage space the department calls Emma's Closet.
The Performing Arts Center underwent renovation, and the space now contains a 753-seat main stage with orchestra pit, two dance studios, and a scene shop.
Sources
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emma_Guffey_Miller
- https://www.ncnewsonline.com/news/lifestyles/the-paranormal-researchers-seek-truth-behind-sru-s-emma-the-ghost/article_c3a14830-a376-51c0-9e30-4d41687450f6.html
- https://pennsylvaniaparanormal.tumblr.com/post/142535992083/slippery-rock-university-sru-pa-is-known
- https://www.ghosttheory.com/2009/02/23/haunted-theater-and-the-ghost-that-wont-let-go
ApparitionsPhantom soundsPhantom footstepsObject movementOrbsDisembodied laughterEquipment malfunction
Theater students at Slippery Rock University began keeping a baby doll onstage during performances sometime after reported disturbances in the auditorium became frequent enough to affect productions. The logic of the ritual — that displaying the doll appeases the resident spirit — passed through generations of students who may not have known Emma Guffey Miller's biography but understood the tradition as insurance. The doll, originally intact, has degraded over decades into what students describe as a charred, mutilated head.
The reported phenomena cluster near Emma's Closet, the backstage room where Miller's donated wardrobe is kept. A paranormal investigation team, Baelfire Paranormal Investigation, spent a night in Miller Auditorium in 2009 at the university's invitation. The group reported capturing photographs they described as showing a primordial mist and claimed to have recorded electronic voice phenomena during the session.
Witnesses across multiple years describe a female figure observed in the auditorium's peripheral spaces — walking the stage, visible from the seating area, present in photographs as a green mist. Some accounts include the sound of a child's laughter. Others report being physically touched while working alone in the space. Props and costumes have been documented vanishing and reappearing elsewhere, disruptions attributed to the older female entity.
A second, reportedly more mischievous presence — distinct from the older woman believed to be Miller — is described in some accounts as a disruptive force that intervenes in productions specifically when the baby doll is absent. These two reported entities are treated as separate by the department's informal folklore, though no investigation has distinguished them conclusively.
Miller's clothing remains in Emma's Closet more than 50 years after her death. The department continues to use the garments for productions.
Notable Entities
Emma (Emma Guffey Miller)
Media Appearances
- Baelfire Paranormal Investigation (2009)
