Historian Robin Cutler* has worked with scholars and media professionals for more than two decades to bring extraordinary American stories to broad audiences.
For five years she was co-producer and project director for ROANOAK, an Emmy-nominated historical epic for PBS’ American Playhouse directed by Jan Egleson. The three-part dramatic series recreated the first contact experiences among Native Americans and Elizabethan explorers on the coast of North Carolina. New York Times critic John O’Connor described ROANOAK as “admirably ambitious” and “quietly and consistently compelling.” With South Carolina ETV, she developed an illustrated Teachers’/Viewers’ Guide for the series for more than 100,000 libraries and schools.
Robin served as film and television editor for the American Historical Association’s Perspectives, and as a Program Officer at the National Endowment for the Humanities before founding a Washington D.C. not-for-profit in 1990. Media Resource Associates, Inc.,explored and preserved stories that provide unique perspectives on the history and character of American society. Many of MRA’s projects stemmed from her partnership with Native American communities in Massachusetts, Montana and Washington state. MRA created a collection of oral history resources with the Wampanoag in Aquinnah (Martha’s Vineyard, MA), and more than a dozen cultural resource videos with the Blackfeet in Browning, Montana.
Robin also wrote and produced MRA’s award-winning prime-time documentary for PBS, INDIAN AMERICA: A GIFT FROM THE PAST, a story of how archaeology and oral tradition define the Makah Indian Nation. The film, narrated by Wes Studi (DANCES WITH WOLVES), became a classic in its field; it is shown in colleges, universities and cultural centers across the United States and overseas. (For more about the Makah or their Museum in Neah Bay, WA. www.makah.com )
Research and writing has been her primary focus since she returned to New York City in 1999. Her detective work for A Soul on Trial: A Marine Corps Mystery at the Birth of the Twentieth Century (Rowman & Littlefield) took her to libraries, archives, churches, cemeteries, and military academies from Portland, Oregon to New York. Named a “Notable Naval Book of 2007,” it is a ”fascinating” tale about the clash between an Oregon mother and a Marine Corps major and the impact of the press on military justice a century ago. (For reviews see Press tab on this website.)
Robin holds a doctorate in history from Columbia University and taught in universities in New York City for eleven years. She is a member of Phi Beta Kappa, History News Network (HNN), the OAH and AHA, Digital Book World, Net Impact and the Authors Guild. Occasionally she reviews for the National Endowment for the Humanities; she’s received several grants and awards for media and educational projects and for her government service at NEH. Since 2008, she has given talks in Oregon, Washington, Maryland, South Carolina and New York City.
These days she travels to California frequently to visit her daughters and two special little boys– and to search more archives for her latest project : The journey of a young orphan from a desert hamlet in Arizona to Manhattan’s Café Society and then to Hollywood between 1925 and 1940. See the Journeys Through History blog posts on this site for more details.
To reach the author, please contact Kim Lyons, Senior Marketing Manager at Rowman & Littlefield, (klyons@rowmanlittlefield.com ) or Robin via the site’s contact form.
*She was known professionally as Robin C. Maw until 1994.