About the Collection

Dr. Dorothy Gray Mills Howard was a noted author and scholar of children’s games and folklore. She graduated from North Texas State Teachers College in 1923, where she was prominent in sports and other activities. Her teaching career included public schools in New York and New Jersey (1930-1944), Professor of English, Frostburg State College, Maryland (1944-1967), and Visiting Professor of English, University of Nebraska (1967-1969). She received a Fulbright post-doctoral research grant in 1954 to study the traditional play customs of Australian children. Her extensive list of publications includes poetry, numerous articles about the folklore of children’s play, and her two major works, Dorothy’s World: Childhood in Sabine Bottom, 1902-1910, published in 1977, and Pedro of Tonalá, published in 1989.

Dr. Howard received many awards, including one from The Association for the Anthropological Study of Play, recognizing her for her significant contributions to the study of play. The American Folklore Society named an award in her honor, the Dorothy Howard Award for Excellence in Folklore. Other research areas included an autobiography, a novel, studies of an Amish community in Maryland, and genealogy. Dr. Howard died in 1996.

Materials from this collection can be searched on the Dorothy Gray Mills Howard Collection finding aid.