Howard worked first as a newspaper editor on the Great Falls Leader, later for the Montana Study (a statewide community development project), and as a freelance writer.
His books, speeches and magazine articles, expressed his ideals of community awareness and identity, encouraging readers to retain an idealistic vision contesting the deadening demands of the modern world.
At the Leader, Howard developed a characteristic writing style that was simultaneously straightforward, evocative, and compelling, and within a few years his talent began to receive broader attention.
Though primarily an author of nonfiction, Howard also wrote book reviews for The New York Times and short stories that were published in The Saturday Evening Post, Esquire, and elsewhere.
Among the book's primary targets were Anaconda Copper, which controlled much of the state's economic and political activity at the time, and the Great Northern Railway, which had lured thousands of homesteaders onto Montana land that proved wholly unsuitable for farming.
The recognition afforded Howard by the response to Montana: High, Wide, and Handsome helped open the doors to additional writing, research, and advocacy projects.
Aided by the support of Guggenheim Fellowships in 1947 and 1948, he devoted considerable effort to the writing of a history of Métis leader Louis Riel and his resistance movements against the Canadian government.