National folk hero Betsy Ross, often described as a simple seamstress who rose to fame by creating our most recognizable national symbol, has long captivated the American imagination. But behind the legend is the compelling true story of an accomplished colonial artisan, a furniture upholsterer woven into a thriving colonial economy. Marla Miller, Associate Professor and Director of the Public History Program at UMass Amherst, and acclaimed author of *Betsy Ross and the Making of America*, stitches together the incredible story of this accomplished woman and explores why we as a nation cannot reconcile her true role in our historical imagination
Marla Miller's primary research interest is U.S. women's work before industrialization. Her 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). She is presently completing work on a microhistory of women and work in Federal Massachusetts, and diving into a new project that she is especially excited about: a scholarly biography of that most-misunderstood early American craftswoman, Betsy Ross. As Director of the History Department's Public History program, Marla also teaches courses in Public History, American Material Culture, and Museum and Historic Site Interpretation, and continues to consult with a wide variety of museums and historic sites.