Perry H. Howard

Harvard University

Rebecca Shieber
Brook Howard

Perry Holbrook Howard (February 7, 1922 – November 19, 2009) was a sociologist known for his research in the field of Louisiana politics. He was a long-term professor at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, from which he received his Ph.D. in 1954.

A native of Maine, Howard served for three years in the United States Navy in the South Pacific during World War II. Thereafter, he attended Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In 1964, he returned to LSU a decade after his graduation and remained on the faculty for nearly thirty years.

In 1963, Howard joined William C. Havard and Rudolf Heberle in co-authorship of the work, The Louisiana Elections of 1960, which focuses on (1) the 1959–1960 gubernatorial campaign, won by Jimmie Davis for his second nonconsecutive term, and (2) the following presidential contest, in which John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson won Louisiana's then ten electoral votes. Topics covered include social and political background and socio-economic factors in voting. The authors determined, for instance, that Kennedy won in the state because he ran more strongly among the working class in South Louisiana, and Richard M. Nixon lost North Louisiana to independent electors pledged to U.S. Senator Harry F. Byrd of Virginia. Kennedy also ran considerably ahead of deLesseps Story Morrison, Davis's opponent in the gubernatorial runoff election among key Democratic constituency groups. The authors also found that several sugar-producing parishes in south Louisiana which had backed Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1956 switched to Kennedy-Johnson in 1960.