Earl J. Barlow was born on June 2, 1927, on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation, Browning, Montana, to Forest James Barlow and Vera Stewart Barlow. He attended federally operated boarding school and rural elementary schools on the reservation and graduated from Browning High School in 1944. He attended the University of Idaho from 1944-1945, Stanford University in 1945, and Western Montana College where he received a B.S. degree with honors in 1948. Barlow received his M.A. in Education from Montana State University in Missoula (now called The University of Montana-Missoula) in 1959.
Barlow began working as a teacher on the Flathead Indian Reservation in 1948 before becoming an elemenatry school principal and then coach and Superintendent of Schools for the district from 1957 to 1966. From 1966 to 1969 he was employed as Superintendent of Schools for District 2 in Stevensville, Montana; from 1969 to 1970 as a Program Specialist supervising ESEA and Title I programs for the western third of Montana; from 1970 to 1973 as the first Indian appointed to be Supervisor of Indian Education in the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction; from 1973 to 1978 as Superintendent of Schools in Browning, Montana; from 1979 to 1981 as Director, Office of Indian Education, Bureau of Indian Affairs, in Washington, D.C.; and in 1982 as Area Director, Bureau of Indian Affairs, Minneapolis, Minnesota. Barlow retired in 1994.
From the guide to the Earl J. Barlow papers, 1937 and 1972-2005, (University of Montana-Missoula Maureen and Mike Mansfield Library Archives and Special Collections)
