Henry Wallace

Henry Wallace (1888-1965), 33rd vice president of the United States (1941-45), agriculturist, and editor. The son of Henry Cantwell Wallace, Henry Agard Wallace was born in Adair County, Iowa, on October 7, 1888, and educated at Iowa State Agricultural College. He joined his father and grandfather on the staff of Wallace's Farmer in 1910, served as editor from 1924 to 1929, and was editor of the successor journal Iowa Homestead and Wallace's Farmer from 1929 to 1933. During this time he also did research on corn yields and developed a corn hybrid with a high yield for feeding pigs.

Originally a member of the Republican Party, Wallace supported New York Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt, the Democratic candidate, in his bid for the presidency in 1932. Wallace served as Roosevelt's secretary of agriculture from 1933 to 1940. As secretary he formulated the reforms incorporated in the Agricultural Adjustment Act, designed to raise farm prices.

Wallace served as vice president during Roosevelt's third term, then as secretary of commerce (1945-46) in the cabinets of Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman. The latter demanded and received Wallace's resignation from the cabinet after the secretary delivered a speech castigating American foreign policy, especially the hard-line policy toward the Soviet Union. He then served as editor of the New Republic, a liberal weekly magazine, from 1946 to 1948.

Wallace disagreed with the foreign-policy platforms of both major parties and along with many liberal Democrats turned against the Democratic Party. Consequently, Wallace became the presidential candidate of the newly formed Progressive Party in 1948; he received 1,157,172 votes.

Wallace was the author of many works on agricultural experimentation, sociology, and foreign affairs. His books include Toward World Peace (1948), Corn and the Midwestern Farmer (1956), The Long Look Ahead (1960), and the posthumously published New Frontiers (1969). He died on November 18, 1965, in Danbury, Connecticut.