Wallace, Henry

Wallace, Henry, 1836–1916, American agricultural leader, b. West Newton, Pa., grad. Jefferson (later Washington and Jefferson) College, 1859. He studied (1861–63) theology and went (1863) to Iowa as a home missionary of the United Presbyterian Church. He later turned to farming, pioneering in several aspects of agriculture, and began writing agricultural articles for the Iowa Homestead. He was made its managing editor, but his efforts in the early 1890s to curb railroad powers led to his removal from the editorship. In 1895 he joined with his son Henry Cantwell Wallace in founding the newspaper that later was called Wallaces' Farmer. This journal soon won recognition as a leading agricultural newspaper of the country. “Uncle Henry,” as he was affectionately known, was a popular speaker and a counselor of Republican statesmen. He served (1908) as a member of President Theodore Roosevelt's Country Life Commission. Wallace's works include Clover Farming (1898) and Letters to the Farm Folk (1915). His autobiography, Uncle Henry's Own Story of His Life (1917), dealt chiefly with his boyhood.

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