Her father was in the army, and the family lived in several states before settling in the small town of Old Lyme, Connecticut, when she was entering eleventh grade.
She won an AFS Intercultural Programs scholarship and spent a year in Llay-Llay, Chile, before graduating from Old Lyme High School.
[1] Her parents are Elizabeth Carmen (née Whitman) and the nuclear engineer Peter Karter (né Patayonis Karteroulis).
The sociologist Amitai Etzioni has called Muir's books key works in the social history of holidays.
Muir argues that Americans can, and must, make economic changes to alleviate their environmental and political problems.
Although her book was well received by economic historians who like to look at how industries rise and fall, Muir doesn't call herself a lay economist.