My primary research interest is U.S. women's work before industrialization, and I have just published a new book that I am especially excited about: a scholarly biography of that most-misunderstood early American craftswoman, Betsy Ross.  For more on Betsy Ross and the Making of America (Holt, 2009) please go to www.betsyrossbook.com.

My first book, the Needle's Eye: Women and Work in the Age of Revolution, appeared from the University of Massachusetts Press in August 2006, and won the Costume Society of America's Millia Davenport Publication Award for the best book in the field for that year.  Related articles have appeared in the New England Quarterly (1998), the proceedings of the Dublin Seminar on New England Folklife (2000), and the William and Mary Quarterly (2003).  I am presently completing work on a microhistory of women and work in Federal Massachusetts, and a short biography of 18th-century gownmaker Rebecca Dickinson.

In addition to course on the era of the American Revolution, as Director of the History Department's Public History Program I also offer courses in Public History, American Material Culture, and Museum and Historic Site Interpretation, and continue to consult with a wide variety of museums and historic sites.

Announcements:

The University of Massachusetts Press announces a new series:

“Public History in Historical Perspective,” edited by Marla R. Miller

The aim of this series is to explore, from different critical perspectives, how representations of the past in the U.S. and elsewhere have been mobilized to serve a variety of political, cultural, and social ends.  Books in the series will offer analyses of interest not simply to public historians but also the wide community of scholars engaged in efforts to understand the role of history in American life.

Links of Interest:

1. University of Massachusetts Public History Program
   

2. National Council on Public History
   

3. H-Public
   

4. Massachusetts Studies Network
   

5. University of Massachusetts Press