Miner was born to Roy Waldo, who was Curator of Marine Life at the American Museum of Natural History, and Anna Elizabeth Carroll.
She was a fraternal twin with her brother, Dwight C. Miner, who became a history professor at Columbia University.
Two years later, she began pursuing a Doctor of Philosophy in Art History at Columbia, under Meyer Schapiro, but never completed the program.
[2] In 1933, the Morgan Library & Museum hired Miner to assist with the cataloging of the first exhibition in the United States devoted to illuminated manuscripts.
[3] In 1934, upon the recommendation of Morgan Library director Belle da Costa Greene, Miner became the first Keeper of Manuscripts at the Walters Art Museum, and eventually held the simultaneous position of Curator of Islamic and Near Eastern Art until her death from cancer in 1973.