Howard D. Johnson
Cite this Page
"Howard D. Johnson," White House Workers History Project, White House Historical Association, 2026, https://whha.whirlihost.com/Detail/workers/799.
- Positions
- Movie Operator
- Electrician
- Years in President's House
- 1929 – circa 1951
- Legal Status
- Free Person
- Gender
- Male
- Race/Ethnicity
- White
- Biography
- Howard D. Johnson was born on August 15, 1896, in Virginia. (1) Johnson was an electrician in the U.S. Navy. In 1929, newspapers reported that he “was formerly in charge of motion picture equipment on the President yacht Mayflower.” That year, after attending a ten day training at “a leading talkie laboratory” in New York, he brought his movie know-how back to the Hoover White House. (2) In the years that followed, he was listed as a movie operator and electrician on staff. White House Maid Lillian Rogers Parks wrote in her memoir: “Head Electrician Johnson, who had operated the first movie projector under Hoover, was happily called ‘Short Circuit’” by the other Residence Staff. (3) Parks also recalled that prior to showing a new film to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Johnson would “test run the movie” by inviting other workers to a screening; in her words: “We would drop anything we were doing and rush to watch, dust rag in hand or sewing in our laps.” During World War II, he served in the US Navy as an electrician’s mate with the rank of chief petty officer. (4) Johnson was still listed on the White House staff in 1951, earning a salary increase that year, but further information about his tenure there is scarce. (5) Howard Johnson died on May 19, 1988, and was buried at Arlington National Cemetery. (6)
- (1) “Howard Johnson,” Find a Grave, https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/121290906/howard-david-johnson.
(2) “Talkies Now: Reign of ‘Silent Drama’ at White House Is Ended,” The Pittsburgh Press, April 30, 1929, pg. 51.
(3) Xmas List 1931, Lou Henry Hoover Papers, Subject Files, White House Christmas 1931, Herbert Hoover Presidential Library; Christmas 1930, Lou Henry Hoover Papers, Subject Files, White House Christmas 1930, Herbert Hoover Presidential Library; Howard D Johnson in the 1940 United States Federal Census, Year: 1940; Census Place: Arlington, Virginia; Roll: m-t0627-04245; Page: 15B; Enumeration District: 7-17, Ancestry.com; “President Harry S. Truman's White House Staff,” Harry S. Truman Presidential Library and Museum, https://www.trumanlibrary.gov/library/white-house-staff#J. Lillian Rogers Parks, My Thirty Years Backstairs at the White House (New York: Fleet Publishing Co., 1961), 319.
(4) “Howard Johnson,” Find a Grave, https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/121290906/howard-david-johnson. Lillian Rogers Parks, The Roosevelts: A Family in Turmoil (New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1981), 27.
(5) “Memorandum to President Harry S. Truman re Salary Increases for White House Employees,” November 1, 1951, White House Files: President's Secretary's Files, Harry S. Truman Library, https://catalog.archives.gov/id/354584155; Howard D Johnson in the 1950 United States Federal Census, National Archives at Washington, DC; Washington, D.C.; Seventeenth Census of the United States, 1950; Year: 1950; Census Place: All Places, Arlington, Virginia; Roll: 733; Page: 16; Enumeration District: 7-50, Ancestry.com.
(6) “Howard Johnson,” Find a Grave, https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/121290906/howard-david-johnson. - Birthplace
- Virginia, USA
- Related Worker
- Garland L. NowlanTrades, 1939 – 1966