Lawyer, government official, consumer affairs advocate, and Republican Party activist, Eunice Perry (Simm) Howe was born in Belmont, Massachusetts, on April 24, 1918, the oldest child of A. Glenn and Mary Eliza Simm. She received her Bachelor's Degree from Mount Holyoke College in 1938 and her Juris Doctor from Boston University School of Law in 1941, graduating at the top of her class; she also took graduate courses in law at George Washington University in 1943 and 1944, and received a Master's in Public Administration from Harvard University’s Kennedy School in 1985. She married Henry Dunster Howe, a dentist, in 1945; they had two daughters: Eunice (born 1947) and Maryalice (1950-2010). Henry Howe died in 1982 and in 1988 Howe married Henry Bradford Arthur, a professor at Harvard University's Business School; Arthur died in 1994.
In 1941, Howe joined the Massachusetts Attorney General Robert T. Bushnell's office as a law clerk, and in 1942 Attorney General Robert T. Bushnell appointed her Assistant Attorney General, making her the youngest person to hold that office in the history of the state. She left the Attorney General's office in 1944, to join the U.S. Naval Reserve, serving in the Navy's Casualty Office until 1946. She returned to the Attorney General's office in 1948, serving until 1949 as assistant to the Attorney General and as Counsel to the Division of Employment Security.
She served on numerous Massachusetts commissions and councils, including the Consumers' Council (1965-1974), the Public Utilities Commission (1974-1979), the Alcoholic Beverages Control Commission (1985-1991), and the Ballot Law Commission (1994-1997). In 1970 she was appointed chair of the President's Consumer Advisory Council, a position she resigned in 1974. She was a member of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare's Advisory Committee on Population Affairs from 1971 to 1975 and served on a task force on women in public broadcasting from 1974 to 1976. Howe was also active in politics, serving as president of Brookline's Women’s Republican Club and chair of the Brookline Republican Town Committee, and as Republican National Committeewoman for Massachusetts (1968-1976). In 1977, she was a member of International Women's Year Coordinating Committee for Massachusetts and delegate-at-large to the National Women's Conference in Houston, Texas. A volunteer or board member for numerous educational, civic, and religious organizations, Howe received the Woman of the Year Award from the Greater Boston Business and Professional Women's Club in 1970.
From the guide to the Papers of Eunice P. Howe, (inclusive), (bulk), 1939-1999, 1970-1988, (Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute)
