Elizabeth Milroy

Elizabeth Milroy teaches courses in the history of Western art in the modern period, with a specialty in art and material culture in North America (the United States, Mexico and Canada) from the colonial period to the 20th century. Professor Milroy began her career as a curatorial assistant in the Department of Prints & Drawings at the National Gallery of Canada. She has also worked as a curator at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, the Terra Museum of American Art and from 2012-15 as the Zoe and Dean Pappas Curator of Education for Public Programs at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. From 1988 to 2012, she taught Art History and American Studies at Wesleyan University. From 2015-2021, she was Professor and Department Head of Art & Art History at Drexel. Professor Milroy’s research focuses on the history of cultural spaces, specifically public parks and historic sites in the city of Philadelphia. Her 2016 book, The Grid and the River: Philadelphia’s Green Places, 1682-1876 (Penn State University Press) won the 2017 John Brinkerhoff Jackson Book Prize from the Foundation for Cultural Landscapes.