Founder of Wallaces' Farmer, adviser to Theodore Roosevelt, and consultant to Iowa State College, Uncle Henry Wallace - perhaps more than any writer since Jefferson - spoke of rural society in terms of its significant role in the success of the American democratic vision. This book fills a gap in the history of Midwestern agriculture and the influence of the farm press.
Back in print for the first time in over a century, the real heart and soul of the eldest Henry Wallace is revealed in his open letters to America's farm families. These homespun, secular epistles show that Wallace never lost sight of his roots even as he hobnobbed with U.S. Presidents from Teddy Roosevelt to Woodrow Wilson, anchored the prestigious Country Life Commission, and edited the most famous agricultural magazine of its day, Wallaces' Farmer. Who better to yoke the sacred, agrarian arts of stewardship, husbandry, and parenting than writer-philosopher-farmer-conservationist-minister-educator-public benefactor extraordinaire Uncle Henry Wallace, the man who planted the seeds of honorable public service in his own world-famous son and grandson, Secretary of Agriculture Henry C. Wallace and Vice President and Presidential candidate Henry A. Wallace, respectively. Culled from more than a half dozen volumes of Wallace's writing for farm families, Uncle Henry Wallace: Letters to Farm Families captures the spirit of a man journalist Ray Stannard Baker called "a sort of oracle for advice on everything from the best ways of feeding calves to bringing up boys." Compiled and introduced by fourth-generation Iowa farmer's son Zachary Michael Jack, himself the great-grandson of famed agricultural writer Walter Thomas Jack, these timeless, down-to-earth missives that are meant to be shared, then as now, between farm-loving grandparents and grandchildren, parents and children, and teachers and students of all ages.
Iowa has been blessed with citizens of strong character who have made invaluable contributions to the state and to the nation. In the 1930s alone, such towering figures as John L. Lewis, Henry A. Wallace, and Herbert Hoover hugely influenced the nation’s affairs. Iowa’s Native Americans, early explorers, inventors, farmers, scholars, baseball players, musicians, artists, writers, politicians, scientists, conservationists, preachers, educators, and activists continue to enrich our lives and inspire our imaginations. Written by an impressive team of more than 150 scholars and writers, the readable narratives include each subject’s name, birth and death dates, place of birth, education, and career and contributions. Many of the names will be instantly recognizable to most Iowans; others are largely forgotten but deserve to be remembered. Beyond the distinctive lives and times captured in the individual biographies, readers of the dictionary will gain an appreciation for how the character of the state has been shaped by the character of the individuals who have inhabited it. From Dudley Warren Adams, fruit grower and Grange leader, to the Younker brothers, founders of one of Iowa’s most successful department stores, The Biographical Dictionary of Iowa is peopled with the rewarding lives of more than four hundred notable citizens of the Hawkeye State. The histories contained in this essential reference work should be eagerly read by anyone who cares about Iowa and its citizens. Entries include Cap Anson, Bix Beiderbecke, Black Hawk, Amelia Jenks Bloomer, William Carpenter, Philip Greeley Clapp, Gardner Cowles Sr., Samuel Ryan Curtis, Jay Norwood Darling, Grenville Dodge, Julien Dubuque, August S. Duesenberg, Paul Engle, Phyllis L. Propp Fowle, George Gallup, Hamlin Garland, Susan Glaspell, Josiah Grinnell, Charles Hearst, Josephine Herbst, Herbert Hoover, Inkpaduta, Louis Jolliet, MacKinlay Kantor, Keokuk, Aldo Leopold, John L. Lewis, Marquette, Elmer Maytag, Christian Metz, Bertha Shambaugh, Ruth Suckow, Billy Sunday, Henry Wallace, and Grant Wood. Excerpt from the entry on: Gallup, George Horace (November 19, 1901–July 26, 1984)—founder of the American Institute of Public Opinion, better known as the Gallup Poll, whose name was synonymous with public opinion polling around the world—was born in Jefferson, Iowa. . . . . A New Yorker article would later speculate that it was Gallup’s background in “utterly normal Iowa” that enabled him to find “nothing odd in the idea that one man might represent, statistically, ten thousand or more of his own kind.” . . . In 1935 Gallup partnered with Harry Anderson to found the American Institute of Public Opinion, based in Princeton, New Jersey, an opinion polling firm that included a syndicated newspaper column called “America Speaks.” The reputation of the organization was made when Gallup publicly challenged the polling techniques of The Literary Digest, the best-known political straw poll of the day. Calculating that the Digest would wrongly predict that Kansas Republican Alf Landon would win the presidential election, Gallup offered newspapers a money-back guarantee if his prediction that Franklin Delano Roosevelt would win wasn’t more accurate. Gallup believed that public opinion polls served an important function in a democracy: “If govern¬ment is supposed to be based on the will of the people, somebody ought to go and find what that will is,” Gallup explained.
The great politician, agriculturalist, economist, author, and businessman—loved and reviled, and finally now revealed. The great politician, agriculturalist, economist, author, and businessman—loved and reviled, and finally now revealed. The first full biography of Henry A. Wallace, a visionary intellectual and one of this century's most important and controversial figures. Henry Agard Wallace was a geneticist of international renown, a prolific author, a groundbreaking economist, and a businessman whose company paved the way for a worldwide agricultural revolution. He also held two cabinet posts, served four tumultuous years as America's wartime vice president under FDR, and waged a quixotic campaign for president in 1948. Wallace was a figure of Sphinx-like paradox: a shy man, uncomfortable in the world of politics, who only narrowly missed becoming president of the United States; the scion of prominent Midwestern Republicans and the philosophical voice of New Deal liberalism; loved by millions as the Prophet of the Common Man, and reviled by millions more as a dangerous, misguided radical. John C. Culver and John Hyde have combed through thousands of document pages and family papers, from Wallace's letters and diaries to previously unavailable files sealed within the archives of the Soviet Union. Here is the remarkable story of an authentic American dreamer. A Washington Post Best Book of the Year. 32 pages of b/w photographs. "A careful, readable, sympathetic but commendably dispassionate biography."—Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., Los Angeles Times Book Review "In this masterly work, Culver and Hyde have captured one of the more fascinating figures in American history."—Doris Kearns Goodwin, author of No Ordinary Time "Wonderfully researched and very well written...an indispensable document on both the man and the time."—John Kenneth Galbraith "A fascinating, thoughtful, incisive, and well-researched life of the mysterious and complicated figure who might have become president..."—Michael Beschloss, author of Taking Charge: The Johnson White House Tapes, 1963-1964 "This is a great book about a great man. I can't recall when—if ever—I've read a better biography."—George McGovern "[A] lucid and sympathetic portrait of a fascinating character. Wallace's life reminds us of a time when ideas really mattered."—Evan Thomas, author of The Very Best Men: The Early Years of the CIA "Everyone interested in twentieth-century American history will want to read this book."—Robert Dallek, author of Flawed Giant "[T]he most balanced, complete, and readable account..."—Walter LaFeber, author of Inevitable Revolutions "At long last a lucid, balanced and judicious narrative of Henry Wallace...a first-rate biography."—Douglas Brinkley, author of The Unfinished Presidency "A fine contribution to twentieth-century American history."—James MacGregor Burns, author of Dead Center: Clinton-Gore Leadership and the Perils of Moderation "[E]minently readable...a captivating chronicle of American politics from the Depression through the 1960s."—Senator Edward M. Kennedy "A formidable achievement....[an] engrossing account."—Kai Bird, author of The Color of Truth: McGeorge Bundy & William Bundy, Brothers in Arms "Many perceptions of Henry Wallace, not always favorable, will forever be changed."—Dale Bumpers, former US Senator, Arkansas
Stegner’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of personal, historical, and geographic discovery Confined to a wheelchair, retired historian Lyman Ward sets out to write his grandparents' remarkable story, chronicling their days spent carving civilization into the surface of America's western frontier. But his research reveals even more about his own life than he's willing to admit. What emerges is an enthralling portrait of four generations in the life of an American family. "Cause for celebration . . . A superb novel with an amplitude of scale and richness of detail altogether uncommon in contemporary fiction." —The Atlantic Monthly "Brilliant . . . Two stories, past and present, merge to produce what important fiction must: a sense of the enchantment of life." —Los Angeles Times This Penguin Classics edition features an introduction by Jackson J. Benson. For more than sixty-five years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,500 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
The Wallace catalogs the sheer brutality of war. We are regaled with such detailed accounts of the sacking of towns and the burning down of buildings full of screaming inhabitants that the smells and sounds, as well as the terrible sights, of war are graphically conveyed in language which seems designed not only to express Wallace's rage and Hary's antipathy but also to incite hatred of the English in his readers.
Unlikely President: Henry A. Wallace Born in 1888 as a third-generation farmer-journalist (at Wallaces Farmer) Henry A.Wallace graduated from Iowa State in 1910. He went to work for the influential family publication after graduation and he became editor upon the appointment of his father Henry Cantwell Wallace as Hardings secretary of agriculture. Henry Agard himself became Franklin Roosevelts agriculture secretary 1933-1941 and was instrumental in turning around the depressed farm economy in the thirties, helped by a squadron of land-grant college graduates and county agents in running one of the most efficient government departments ever. FDR specifically chose Wallace as his running mate in 1940 to help win the Midwest. Wallace didnt care much for the job as vice president until be was given more responsibility after the war began. As agriculture secretary and later as vice president Wallace wrote and spoke widely, traveling across the United States and on missions abroad to Mexico, Latin America and the Far East. He spoke to his Spanish-speaking listeners in their own language and even managed some Russian in Siberia. In 1942 he gave a speech entitled The Century of The Common Man in which he recognized the dignity and potential of the common man, wherever he might live. It was reprinted and distributed and sold in 20 languages and millions of copies. His science training enabled him to represent the government in talks with the atomic bomb scientists and understand what they were doing. And later he was a prime mover in the development of hybrid corn, which revolutionized corn cultivation and made him, his family and his partners wealthy. To Wallaces great disappointment in 1944 Franklin D. Roosevelt dropped him and chose Harry S. Truman for vice president, who, of course, became president in April 1945 when FDR died. Truman was nominated and elected in his own right in 1948. But this book conjectures what might have happened if Wallace instead of Truman had been the choice of the Democratic party in 1944 and had succeeded Roosevelt, an unlikely president from 1945 to 1949. Wallace joined a third-party movement in 1948 and campaigned for the presidency. A naive idealist, he was cruelly taken in and humiliated by communists and others and received not a single electoral vote. He withdrew from public life after the election. In 1950 he broke with his party and supported the Korean War. He died in 1965 at 77.
