Marla R. Miller

Marla R. Miller is an American public historian.

Career

Miller's scholarship focuses on the work of women in the United States prior to industrialization, with a focus on material culture and craft. She holds a PhD from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.[1] Miller is well known for her work on Betsy Ross which challenges popular narratives about Ross' involvement with the creation of the United States flag.[2]

Miller served from 2001 to 2021 as the Director of the Public History Program at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.[1] Miller was elected vice president/president elect of the National Council on Public History Board of Directors in 2016.[3] Her term as NCPH president concluded in 2020.[4] She is a speaker in the Organization of American Historians Distinguished Lectureship Program.[5]

In addition to her academic work Miller has worked as both an editor and a public history consultant. She has sat on the editorial board of The Public Historian, Journal of the Early Republic, and the New England Quarterly.[1] She is the founding editor of the University of Massachusetts Press series "Public History in Historical Perspective." Miller's co-authored 2012 report Imperiled Promise: The State of History in the National Park Service which won the National Council on Public History prize for Excellence in Consulting in 2013.[6]

Publications

• The Needle's Eye: Women and Work in the Age of Revolution, University of Massachusetts Press, August 2006.
• Editor. Cultivating a Past: Essays in the History of Hadley, Massachusetts, University of Massachusetts Press, 2009.
• Betsy Ross and the Making of America, Holt, 2010. 
• University of Massachusetts Amherst: A Campus Guide. Princeton: Princeton Architectural Press, 2013; with Max Page.
• Rebecca Dickinson (Lives of American Women series). Boulder, CO: Westview Press/Perseus, 2013.
• Co-Editor with Max Page, Bending the Future: Fifty Ideas for the Next Fifty Years of Historic Preservation in the United States, University of Massachusetts Press, 2016.
• Entangled Lives: Labor, Livelihood, and Landscapes of Change in Rural Massachusetts, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2019.

Awards

• Costume Society of America's Millia Davenport Publication Award for the best book in the field, 2007. For The Needle's Eye[7]
• H.F. DuPont Winterthur Museum and Library research fellowship, 2008[8]
• Patrick Henry Fellowship, C.V. Starr Center for the American Experience, 2009-10
• Finalist, Cundill Prize in History at McGill University, 2010. For Betsy Ross and the Making of America.[9]
• Strickland Distinguished Visiting Scholar, Middle Tennessee State University, 2012[10]
• Samuel F. Conti Faculty Fellowship, UMass Amherst, 2014-2015[11]

References

1. "Marla Miller | Department of History | UMass Amherst". www.umass.edu. Retrieved 2019-12-09.
2. "Marla Miller unfurls the myth of Betsy Ross and the first flag". USA TODAY. Retrieved 2019-12-09.
3. "2016 Election – Candidate Statements" (PDF). 2016.
4. "National Council on Public History | Board of Directors and Committees". Retrieved 2019-12-09.
5. "Participating Speakers | OAH". www.oah.org. Retrieved 2019-12-09.
6. "National Council on Public History | NCPH 2013 Group Consulting Award (Part 1): What next for Imperiled Promise?". Retrieved 2019-12-09.
7. "Millia Davenport Publication Award – Costume Society of America". Retrieved 2019-12-09.
8. "Former Research Fellows | Winterthur Museum, Garden & Library". Retrieved 2019-12-09.
9. Design, Here (2019-11-22). "Press Archive". Cundill Prize. Retrieved 2019-12-09.
10. "History Department | Middle Tennessee State University". www.mtsu.edu. Retrieved 2019-12-09.
11. "Recipients of Faculty Fellowship Award/Samuel F. Conti Faculty Fellowship Awards | Research and Engagement". www.umass.edu. Retrieved 2019-12-09.