 Milius would make portraits of the children in the neighborhood, and produced a pen-and-ink drawing that would be her first published piece in Marxist publication "The New Masses".Milius moved away from urban themes after two years, and in 1936 began introducing industrial themes into her work.That year, Harry Sternberg received a Guggenheim Fellowship to travel to mining and steelmaking centers in the United States, and he brought a group of students with him, including Milius, who visited an anthracite mining town in Lanford, Pennsylvania.