Dorothy Howard was an American folklorist, public school teacher, principal, and professor at Frostburg State University.

Eventually, due to failing health, Howard moved to Greenfield, Massachusetts, where she died in 1996 at the age of ninety-three.

Her dissertation was titled, “Folk Jingles of American Children: A Collection and Study of Rhymes Used by Children Today.”[4] Howard began her career as a schoolteacher in 1920 at the age of seventeen when she took over for a fourth grade teacher who passed away suddenly in a nearby community.

[7] For 10 months in 1954–1955, Howard documented the play of Australian children as part of a postdoctoral Fulbright Fellowship.

[13] Howard published extensively, including articles for the general public such as a piece in The New Yorker, as well as many book chapters, peer-reviewed articles in journals such as The Journal of American Folklore and Western Folklore, book reviews, poetry, and book-length manuscripts: