Howland, Richard Hubbard, 1910-2006

Richard Hubbard Howland (b. 1910, Providence, Rhode Island) was the first president of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. He received a Bachelor of Arts from Brown University in 1931, a Master of Arts from Harvard in 1933, and a Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University in Classical Archaelogy in 1946. He spent five years at the American School of Classical Studies in Athens (1933-1938), before returning to the U.S., where he taught at Wellesley College in Boston. He spent ten years (1946-1956) at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, where he was chairman and founder of the Department of Art History. After serving as President of the National Trust for Historic Preservation from 1956 to 1960, Howland went to work at the Smithsonian Institution where he was Chairman of the Department of Civil History at the Museum of History and Technology until 1967, and then Special Assistant to Secretary S. Dillon Ripley until 1985. Howland's papers contain correspondence, memoranda, minutes, reports, writings and publications, research material and lecture notes, photographs, appointment books, awards and certificates, clippings, programs and brochures, and directories documenting his career primarily at the National Trust for Historic Preservation, as well as activities in various cultural and
social organizations.

Howland's sphere of influence was also felt abroad. In 1965 he helped to found the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) and served as the Secretary-Treasurer for the United States branch of ICOMOS from 1967 to 1969. In 1966 he headed a United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) mission to Ethiopia to help organize an effort to preserve ancient monuments and artistic treasures; most notably he prepared an organizational plan for the Ethiopian Antiquities Administration. In 1969, on behalf of the trustees of the John D. Rockefeller III Fund, he undertook a similar mission to Nepal to begin the conservation of historic structures in the Kathmandu Valley. In 1991, Howland was made an Officer of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II.

Over the course of his career, Howland was actively involved in numerous preservation-related organizations on which he often served as a board or charter member. He was a trustee of the Archaeological Institute of America and a founding member of the Society of Architectural Historians. He co-founded the Preservation Round Table in Washington, D.C., and was a member of the Washington Cathedral Building Committee. He also served the Irish Georgian Society, the Victorian Society in America, and the Washington branch of the English Speaking Union. Howland was a member of prominent Washington, D.C. social organizations such as the Nineteen-Twenty-Five F Street Club, and the Cosmos Club.

Richard Hubbard Howland died at his home in Washington, DC, on October 24, 2006, at the age of 96.

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