by 
Curator of Fashion and Decorative Arts | Historic New England
As Curator of Fashion and Decorative Arts at Historic New England, Dr. Nora Ellen Carleson is part of a team that curates a collection of over 125,000 objects and thirty-eight historic house museums throughout New England as well as the Haverhill Center for Preservation and Collections in Haverhill, Massachusetts. She has a BA in History from Monmouth College (Illinois), an MA from the Smithsonian / George Mason History of Decorative Arts Program, and an MA and PhD in History of American Civilization from the University of Delaware. As a scholar, she focuses on nineteenth-and-twentieth-century material culture, politics, intellectual history, dress design, and fashion. Before joining Historic New England, Nora worked at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History, Hillwood Estate, Museum, and Gardens, the Maryland Center for History and Culture, Winterthur Museum, Garden & Library, and Quinn’s Auction Galleries in Falls Church, Virginia.
