Edgar M. Howell

Edgar M. Howell was an American military historian and museum curator whose work bridged scholarship and public history. Sources identify him as curator of military history at the United States National Museum, Smithsonian Institution, and later as chairman of the Department of National and Military History at the Smithsonian's Museum of History and Technology in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

His books show a wide range of interests within military history. He wrote The Soviet Partisan Movement, 1941-1944, a study prepared for the U.S. Army, and he also published research on American military material culture, including American Military Insignia, 1800-1851 and United States Army Headgear 1855-1902. In Hermann Stieffel, Soldier Artist of the West, he turned to the visual history of the American West, highlighting the value of firsthand military art as historical evidence.

Available records suggest he was born in 1916 and died in 1964. Even from the limited biographical details that survive online, his work stands out for making specialized military history readable, organized, and useful for both researchers and general readers.