Millia Davenport

Millia Davenport cover illustration for The Quill (January 1918); her stylized "MD" signature mark is in the top left corner. Millia Crotty Davenport (March 30, 1895 – January 18, 1992) was an American costumer, theater designer, and scholar, known for her 1948 work The Book of Costume.

Biography Millia Davenport was born March 30, 1895, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, to biologists Charles and Gertrude Davenport, who became leaders of the American eugenics movement. She studied in Paris as a teenager, returning to New York where she graduated from Huntington High School in 1913 and attended Barnard College from 1913 to 1915. She studied at the Parsons School of Design from 1917 to 1918, and later taught there.

In the early 1960s she founded and cataloged the library of the American Museum of Folk Art.

In 1981 Davenport received the highest honor given by the United States Institute for Theatre Technology, for a lifetime of distinguished contribution to the performing arts. That same year she was awarded an honorary doctorate from the Parsons School of Design.

She died January 18, 1992,

Legacy In 1991 the Costume Society of America established the Millia Davenport Publication Award recognizing excellence in costume scholarship.