Dr. Carr’s work has been internationally recognized and drawn upon for further historical investigations for many years. Her professional life in Maryland began at the Maryland Hall of Records Commission in Annapolis as a Junior Archivist in 1956. Still at the Archives more than 40 years later, Dr. Carr continues to work among the records of births and deaths, inventories, and court records to weave a picture of a lost world-
Maryland at the beginning.

Published to promote the first annual Eisenberg Prize for Excellence in the Humanities, which was awarded to Dr. Carr and Dr. George B. Undarhelyi, the Maryland Humanities Council wrote the following about Dr. Carr:

"Growing up in a household where her mother and grandfather were both historians, Dr. Lois Green Carr never doubted that she too would become a historian. Although her relatives chose the traditional course of university professorship, Dr. Carr devoted her energies to researching and writing about the colonial Chesapeake for all kinds of audiences from school children to professional colleagues. While others concentrated on writing cautiously guarded monographs to advance their professional standing, she chose to share her work with upcoming students and fellow historians, often co-authoring books and articles with her colleagues. Choosing Maryland as her home base after earning her Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1968, she was one of the driving forces behind the St. Mary’s City Commission and is today internationally recognized as the leading social and economic historian of the Colonial Chesapeake."

Dr. Carr has an eagerness to share her knowledge that is uncommon in the field of history. Because of this, she has had a strong, positive influence on several generations of scholars. Dr. Carr has directed research on a diversity of subjects, ranging from the experiences of women in 17th Century Maryland and colonial inequality to the development of local government and religious toleration. Her efforts with land and court
records provide the historical baseline for discovering the State of Maryland’s first capital, St. Mary’s City, and the people who lived there.

Dr. Carr is a recognized leader in the fields of Social and Economic History, having served as president of the Economic History Association. Through her pioneering work with probate inventories and other seldom used types of documents, she led the way in the field of New History.

Her book, Robert Cole’s World: Agriculture and Society in Early Maryland, co-authored with Russell R. Menard and Lorena S. Walsh, was reviewed as “…a stunning achievement…” by Carville Earle, and “The finest book ever written on agriculture in seventeenth-century America,” by Peter A. Caclanis. Robert Cole’s World was the winner of the Maryland Historical Society Book prize in 1993. Also, it won the Alice Hanson Jones Prize, given by the Economic History Association for an outstanding book published in North American Economic History during 1991-1992. An article published in the William and Mary Quarterly, "The Planter’s Wife: The Experience of White Women in Seventeenth-Century Maryland," with Lorena S. Walsh, was voted by readers of the Quarterly to be one of the 11 most influential articles published during the first 50 years.

Lois Green Carr has earned the respect and admiration of a wide circle of
colleagues. In 1992, a conference in her honor was organized at the University of Maryland, College Park that also resulted in a published "festshrift" of the papers presented. Entitled,  "Lois Green Carr: The Chesapeake and Beyond- A Celebration," the symposium was indeed a celebration of a uniquely gifted and generous historian. The program participants represented a veritable "Who’s Who" of American historians and economists.

Dr. Carr is internationally recognized as the leading social and economic
historian of the Colonial Chesapeake. According to Dr. John J. McCusker, “She has been the answer to many a question, the idea behind many a paper, the thoughtful critic for young and old, a particular stimulus to those of her own gender, and a role model for us all who seek to work in the history of early America.”