author
Cloice R. Howd
b. 1888
A writer and labor economist best remembered for helping preserve early Paul Bunyan lore, he brought both folklore and working life in the lumber camps onto the page. His small body of published work connects American tall tales with the real logging world that inspired them.
1 Audiobook
Paul Bunyan and His Loggers
by Otis T. Howd, Cloice R. Howd
About the author
Born in 1888, Cloice R. Howd is chiefly known as the co-author, with Otis T. Howd, of Paul Bunyan and His Loggers, an early printed collection tied to the stories and culture of North American lumber camps. The book helped carry Bunyan tales from oral tradition into print, giving later readers a glimpse of the humor, exaggeration, and everyday life behind the legend.
Howd also worked as an economist for the U.S. Department of Labor. In 1924 he published Industrial Relations in the West Coast Lumber Industry, a Bureau of Labor Statistics study of labor conditions and organization in the logging trade. That background makes his writing especially interesting: he was not only recording camp folklore, but also studying the industry and workers who shaped it.
Reliable biographical details about his personal life are scarce in the sources available here. Records identify him as Cloice Ray Howd, born in 1888 and deceased in 1933, but he remains a relatively obscure figure whose reputation now rests mainly on his contribution to Paul Bunyan literature and to the historical record of the American lumber industry.