Neil Harris dio clase en la Universidad de Chicago entre 1969 y 2008. Recibió la Medalla Joseph Henry de la Smithsonian Institution y es miembro de la American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Entre sus libros se cuentan The Artist in American Society: The Formative Years, 1790–1860 (1966, 1982); Humbug: The Art of P. T. Barnum (1973, 1981, 2001); Cultural Excursions (1990); The Chicagoan: A Lost Magazine of the Jazz Age (2008); Cultural Capital: J. Carter Brown, the National Gallery of Art, and the Reinvention of the Museum Experience (2013, 2020); y Chicago Apartments: A Century and beyond of Lakefront Luxury (2020).