This undated photo shows Maya Miller, who died Wednesday at her Washoe Valley ranch home. Photo by THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
CARSON CITY -- Maya Miller, a philanthropist who championed women's rights along with many environmental, liberal and progressive causes for decades, died Wednesday at her Washoe Valley ranch home. She was 90.
Miller had been in failing health for several months, and her condition had worsened as a result of a fall in early May.
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Miller lived simply at her ranch, donating millions of dollars of her inherited wealth to both state- and national-level groups. Her home was a gathering spot for many activists who looked to her for advice and support.
"She had compassion for everyone, especially for the people who have it the roughest -- women and children," said her daughter, Kit Miller. "They were her No. 1 priority."
"She was so open-hearted and would give everyone a chance, but she had a very hard, fighting side, and the good old boys' network really rubbed her the wrong way."
Miller's activism won her a spot on then-President Nixon's "enemies list" during the Vietnam War era. A board member of the national League of Women Voters, she resigned when the league voted down an anti-war resolution in 1969.
Miller also was a founder of the Washington, D.C.-based Women's Campaign Fund and an early backer of Emily's List, which supports women candidates in national races.
A candidate for the U.S. Senate in 1974, Miller lost in the primary to now-U.S. Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. In later years, Kit Miller said, Reid would contact her mother to discuss issues and seek her support.
In 1991, in her mid-70s, Miller and several other women involved in the group Madre broke a U.S. embargo and trucked about $100,000 worth of medicine and food to Iraqi women and children. She helped to drive one of the trucks from Jordan into Baghdad.
A world traveler, Miller also was active in Quaker circles, Global Exchange, Ms. Foundation and national and state welfare rights efforts.
At the Nevada Legislature in 1971, Miller lobbied for welfare mothers, and her angry outburst over some lawmakers' rudeness to the women resulted in security officers ousting her from the building.
Other Nevada efforts included a key role in helping to create Sand Harbor at Lake Tahoe as a state park, and start-up support for groups such as the Committee to Aid Abused Women, Citizens Alert, Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada and the Nevada Women's Fund.
She also opposed federal plans for a nuclear waste repository in Nevada, started an environmental camp at her ranch, and was active in human and civil rights efforts in this country and in South and Central America.
Miller was raised in Southern California and moved to Nevada in the early 1950s. She had a master's degree in English literature from Cornell and did doctoral work at Stanford.
