THE AMERICAN POLAR SOCIETY —
PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE

PART TWO

Forerunners of The Polar Times

To report the activities of fellow scout Siple in the first Byrd Antarctic Expedition (1928-30), Howard created The Metropolitan Pilot, a mimeographed newsletter distributed monthly to relatives and friends of Paul Siple and to the 25 members of Siple's Sea Scout Ship. This was the official beginning of Howard's career in journalism and the first step towards The Polar Times.

(Biographical information about August Howard cited here is found in RG 56.16, box 1, folders 1-4, at The Ohio State University Archives. Documentation consists of newspaper clippings, obituaries, and an oral history interview of Doris Howard by Peter Anderson in 1989, as well as documentation of The Little America Times and the records of the American Polar Society.)

In 1933, Byrd began his second expedition to Antarctica. Siple joined him again, as he would on each of Byrd's expeditions. By this time, Howard was assistant to the director of publicity for the National Council of the Boy Scouts of America and also advised the Manhattan Boy Scout Press Club.

For Howard, Byrd's second expedition was an opportunity for another venture into journalism: The Little America Times, named after Byrd's base in Antarctica. In 18 issues, from December 27, 1933 to May 31, 1935, The Little America Times reported monthly the activities of the Byrd expedition as well as those of Lincoln Ellsworth's expedition of 1935. The newspaper was distributed to friends and relatives of expedition members. Much of its content consisted of transcriptions of radio broadcasts from Little America.