Joseph Kinsey Howard was born February 28, 1906, in Oskaloosa, Iowa. He moved to Great Falls, Montana, in 1918 when he was 12 years old. Howard spent the rest of his life in and around Great Falls. After high school graduation, he worked for the , an afternoon daily newspaper. At age 20, he was promoted to copy desk editor, and he stayed in that position until he left the newspaper in 1944. In 1936, Howard led the successful effort to start the Great Falls Newspaper Guild, a union that secured higher wages and improved benefits for its members.

In the late 1930s, Howard began writing articles about Montana for and the . Yale University Press noted these articles and offered him a book contract for a history of Montana. After five years of work, was published in 1943. The book harshly criticized the Anaconda Copper Mining Company's domination of Montana, won him critical acclaim and went into ten printings.

In 1944 and 1945, Howard worked with sociologist Baker Brownell on the Montana Study, an effort to improve cultural life in Montana's rural towns. This inspired his second book, . He continued writing for national magazines. In 1947, he was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship that enabled him to write his last book, . Kinsey helped form the Montana Institute of the Arts and planned writing conferences at The University of Montana. Kinsey died of a heart attack in Choteau, Montana, at the age of 45 in 1951.