Nylander was born in 1938 and grew up in Ohio. She has an undergraduate degree in political science from
Brown University and a master's degree in early American history from the
University of Delaware. She then moved to
Winterthur Museum where she was the first woman student, and she led a program that used houses to describe past eras. and while there she led an exhibition pairing a house viewed as if in 1950 with a 1795 household. At the
Old Sturbridge Village Nylander was the curator of textiles and ceramics. She served as president of the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities, which is now known as
Historic New England. After she retired, she wrote the book
The Best Ever! Parades in New England which is a historical investigation of parades in small towns in the United States. ==Selected publications==