Mary Miller (1921-2013) graduated with a bachelor of science in home economics in 1941 from Woman's College of the University of North Carolina, now The University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNCG), and received a master's degree in housing and management in 1949. She retired as assistant professor emeritus of interior design from UNCG in 1986, after starting her career here in 1967. She was instrumental in starting the Department of Interior Design. Miller describes entering college at the age of sixteen from a North Carolina mountain town, student life in the 1930s and teaching home economics in high school and college. She discusses her struggle to get an education and discover her career'studying at Cornell University and eventually getting her doctorate at Columbia University. Miller talks about School of Home Economics dean, Naomi Albanese, the development of the focus and evolution of the Department of Interior Design, the friction between the School of Home Economics and the art department and the support of administration. She mentions influential faculty, such as Vera Largent, Katherine Taylor, Archie Shaftesbury, and Pinky Thompson.
