American Dreamer: A Life of Henry A. Wallace

by John C. Culver, John Hyde

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 32 pages of black and white photographs

Genres: History, Biography, Politics, American History, Nonfiction, American, Biography Memoir

654 pages, Paperback

First published March 20, 2000

Reviews

[Aaron Million · Rating 4 out of 5]

Henry Wallace was an odd man. Weird, even. A non-politician who was nonetheless elected for one term as Vice President, Wallace marched to the beat of his own drum and never apologized for it. He was a native of Iowa, almost literally rooted in its soil given his lifelong work on agricultural issues. So it is fitting that this biography is written by two Iowans: John Culver who was a former Senator from Iowa and John Hyde who worked for the Des Moines Register.

Wallace's background and family life is explored at length. Frequently those parts of a famous political figure's life get scant attention from biographers, but anyone writing about Wallace would not be able to get away with that. Both Wallace's grandfather and father (also both named Henry) were influential figures in the field of agriculture in particular and Iowa in general. When Franklin Delano Roosevelt named Wallace to be his Secretary of Agriculture in 1933, Wallace truly was following in his father's footsteps as he had held that position under Warren Harding a decade earlier. That right there should give you an indication of just how little politics seemed to matter to Wallace at that time. He was an agricultural expert, and despite growing up in a Republican household, he had become disillusioned with the party's farm policies, and especially with Herbert Hoover, whom Wallace at least partially blamed on his father's early death (Hoover was Secretary of Commerce under Harding and fought constantly with the elder Wallace when both were in the Cabinet, as well as upsetting the Wallace's with his handling of food distribution in WWI).

Only gradually did Wallace drift into FDR's orbit. That was both a blessing a curse for him as, without FDR, Wallace would never have become Vice President in the 1940 election, but because of FDR's deviousness and duplicity, Wallace was publicly humiliated when FDR dumped him in 1944 after telling him that he wanted him to run with his again. In retrospect, Wallace would have been much better off staying at Agriculture, where he was an expert in his area. Wallace displayed a mystical naivete about politics (and lots of other things) that over time caused him to become an object of derision. But he also traveled without an entourage, and made it a point to stop and talk to regular, everyday people (he did this as both Secretary and as VP) without them usually even knowing who he was. The man had no pretense, and it was refreshing to read about someone who did not consider himself better than the people was tasked with serving.

In the late 20s and early 30s, Wallace really sort of veered off the beaten path and became enamored with some people who believed heavily in the spiritual realm. A few of these people were no more than charlatans who took advantage of people (including Wallace) for financial gain. One in particular whom Wallace was swindled by was Nicholas Roerich, a Russian painter and philosopher. Wallace carried on a lengthy correspondence with Roerich, addressing his letters as "Dear Guru". You can imagine what a field day political opponents had with those when they inevitably were leaked to the press. Wallace really messed up here, and the portrayal of him being a dreamy-eyed mystic never left him.

As Vice President, Wallace did not do much. That is not necessarily a slap at Wallace. At that time, and beyond that, the position had no real responsibility other than to preside over the Senate. So that part was beyond Wallace's control. FDR did utilize him though to chair the Board of Economic Warfare to help order vital supplies and control costs during WWII. Unfortunately, as FDR did with everyone, he spread power out amongst so many competing personalities and agencies that nothing much functioned efficiently. Wallace was a victim of this, and ultimately lost a power struggle to the wealthy Secretary of Commerce Jesse Jones. Aside from that, Wallace had very little to do with the management of the war and was not directly involved in any major decision that FDR had to make.

But Wallace did not help himself either. Throughout his time at Agriculture, and then as Vice President, he steadily moved to the left, and kept moving. It might be a stretch to characterize Wallace as "going rogue" yet he increasingly made speeches that did not align with what FDR was saying or doing. He sort of went off and did his own thing, at one point taking a long trip to east Asia and visiting remote parts of Russia and China. Wallace was a deep thinker, and I think that is one of the reasons that FDR liked him, but a repeated series of statements and speeches irritated him. Just as importantly, Wallace became anathema to the Democratic Party regulars. They never trusted him politically (remember that he was a Republican, even when he first became Secretary of Agriculture) or personally (the "dreamer" characterization again). There was an intense, determined effort to get FDR to drop him from the ticket for 1944, and that is what happened, as Harry Truman became the VP nominee.

Following FDR's death, Wallace (who went from Vice President to Secretary of Commerce as FDR began his 4th term) had a cordial but uneasy relationship with Truman. Wallace drifted still further left, so far left that he started becoming linked to Communists and the Communist Party. Some of this was inflated (Wallace was not a Communist and never belonged to that party) and some of this was legitimate (he refused to denounce Communism and consistently preached a soft stance with the Soviet Union). Wallace kept making speeches about foreign policy despite not having that area as part of his portfolio in Commerce. His speeches were in almost direct odds to what Truman and Secretary of State James Byrnes were saying and doing (Wallace vehemently disapproved of the Cold War and of the U.S. stance towards the Soviets). It needs to be said that he did submit his speeches to Truman for approval, and Truman did approve them. Nonetheless, Wallace should have known better. Ultimately his speeches created a huge rift within Truman's administration and Wallace was fired in September 1946.

After his dismissal, Wallace was even more free to speak his mind and he definitely did so, while continuing to move leftward. By this point, Wallace had fallen out of the Democratic Party and was now on the left-wing fringe of politics. He was basically for peace at any price, and condemned U.S. foreign policy so much that he started to look moderately anti-American. As usual, Wallace was oblivious to the impression that he created of himself and just continued to speak his mind. He even helped found the Progressive Party and ran as a third party against Truman in 1948. Wallace got destroyed, getting barely over one million votes despite campaigning for more than a year, traveling the country constantly, and spending heavily on advertising.

The authors are clearly sympathetic to Wallace while also acknowledging that he was frequently his own worst enemy. They respected Wallace for his idealism and believed him to be an honorable man, which I believe that he was. However they note that Wallace frequently should have read the tealeaves and understood the limitations of his positions and his influence. Ultimately, he ended up doing more harm to his cause than good as far as the Soviet Union was concerned, although his focus on improving agricultural production for Latin American countries was successful and it remains something to be proud of.

Roosevelt and Truman come off looking pretty bad. There are a few times where I wondered if they behaved as poorly, given the circumstances, as the authors made them out. Again, while they were not uncritical of Wallace, I think they could have criticized him a tad more without overdoing it. While Wallace's personal life did not get as much mention as I would have liked to have seen, I think that was more a function of Wallace's life - he was consumed by certain things, and was quite aloof with people, even seeming to not be that close to his wife at times. Their review of the machinations at the 1944 Democratic National Convention in Chicago is excellent, and I appreciated seeing those events from a Wallace point of view instead of from an FDR or Truman stance.

One final thought: Wallace missed out on being President by less than three months. What kind of President would he have been? That question cannot be answered. The only thing for sure is that he would have been totally different than Harry Truman turned out to be. And that was Wallace in a nutshell: a totally different type of person.

Grade: A-

[Louis · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved this book and have posted this to Face Book.
This man is one of the most important men of recent past you may not have ever heard.

Henry A Wallace former VP of the USA. One of the most important Liberals you have most likely never heard.
His definition of a Liberal in 1953 the year I was born is quite informative.
"To me a liberal is one who believes in using in a non-violent, tolerant and democratic way the forces of education, publicity, politics, economics, business, law and religion to direct the ever-changing and increasing power of science into channels which will bring peace and the maximum of well-being both spiritual and economic to the greatest number of human beings. A liberal knows that the only certainty in this life is change but believes that the change can be directed toward a constructive end."

—Henry A. Wallace, "Liberalism Re-appraised," May 1, 1953
I have just finished American Dreamer 2002 by Culver and Hyde. A very good book.
One of the things I have learned and now realize is that time and time again int our history. Conservative business forces bring this country to the brink of disaster time and time again. It is Progressive Capitalism or Social Capitalism that brings it back time and time again. Yet Liberalism is never allowed to really to take hold because conservative forces with their great hold on money, information, infrastructure, and influence on government, especially the Senate.
It was conservative forces withing the Democratic Party and with the acquiescence of a weakened and chronically ill FDR. That stole VP Wallace's chance at the Presidency. Our post WWII world would have been vastly different if Mr Wallace had been the President. The man believed in a world of living wages, unions, level economic opportunity, equal rights, integration, universal education, universal healthcare, peaceful world economic competition without colonization.
What a missed opportunity.
Time to bring these principles back and make them reality in this world.

First Post:

Just started this book and amazing stuff jumping out right off the bat. H A Wallace as a boy living at Ames IA at Iowa State was befriended by an older student who instilled in him a love of plants that was of a spiritual nature. That man was George Washington Carver. He was from a big time agricultural family who were agricultural publishers.
H A started the worlds first cross bred hybrid corn seed company.
A progressive in the making who abandoned the Republican party because of Herbert Hoover's through the Wilson, Harding, and Coolidge administrations fought Ag reform to give to relief to farmers after WW I. He was prescient on how tariffs and war reparations would lead to disaster.
He explored wide ranging religious and spiritual studies that came to a Theosophy view of the universe.
Wonderful so far.
Had no idea that Hoover was a bug in the works for so long. Just doing nothing except for big business.

[Miles · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you've ever sat around wondering about the dismal state of progressive politics in the U.S., the biography of Henry Agard Wallace provides an enlightening walk through 20th century American political history and the New Deal. It does much to explain the patterns of political life in which we seem locked.

It would be tempting to think of a book that tells the American story from the perspective of the Vice President during the third Roosevelt Administration as akin to "the story of the Presidency from the perspective of the White House dog." But it turns out that Henry Agard Wallace, midwestern scientist and Christian mystic, business man, Secretary of Agriculture, Vice President and Presidential candidate, was no joke. He was probably the most progressive, left-wing individual ever to occupy the Vice Presidency. In a certain sense he tells us what has been possible and where the dangers lie when a public figure pushes the boundaries of the possible.

I first noticed Wallace while reading the story of Roald Dahl (The Irregulars: Roald Dahl and the British Spy Ring in Wartime Washington by Jennet Conant), who was tasked with tracking for Churchill the "dangerous" Henry Wallace. "Why on earth were the British conservatives so concerned about the American Vice President?" I wondered. Well for one thing they probably had a sense of Roosevelt's health, and so anything that Wallace said or thought had the potential to become reality, and indeed would have, had Roosevelt not dumped Wallace in 1944 in favor of Truman. And the things that Wallace was saying were highly anti-colonialist, and anti-imperialist and oriented toward reaching an understanding with the Soviet Union. We can well imagine Churchill's alarm.

After Roosevelt dumped Wallace from the '44 ticket in favor of Truman, Wallace went on to run as the Progressive candidate in 1948, and garnered very few votes, as his party was caught up in the beginning of Hoover inspired Red baiting and vicious smears. The Progressives were easy to smear because Wallace was extremely un-involved in the nitty gritty of party building, and as a result there were in fact communists and former fellow travellers involved in the party. Wallace himself was a self identified "progressive capitalist" (and wealthy from his hybrid corn seed company), but he and his party were smeared from every direction - from the South for his opposition to Jim Crow - from the Republicans for alleged communist influences - from the Truman Democrats for alleged willingness to appease Stalin and other disagreements, all related ultimately to the fact that they were attempting to occupy the space to the left of Truman. Truman's defeat of Dewey was close, and a surprise, and it was almost undone by the Progressives, but in the end the Progressives received only a few percent of the total vote, and Truman did win in 1948. With that, Wallace was done, and he retired to his farming and research.

This is a great biography to read to understand the agrarian origins of American progressive politics, and the divisions within the Roosevelt administration over the New Deal and foreign policy. Wallace was right in the center of it all, representing rural America in an era when progressive, populist reality had a distinctly rural tinge to it. It is somewhat ironic that Wallace's hybrid corn and later developments in farm productivity reduced the numbers of farmers needed on the land, and led to the industrialization of agriculture, which hollowed out the very source of Wallace's original progressivism - rural America. By 1948 it was Blacks and Jews who supported Wallace most strongly. What happened to his rural base, the base that he had served as Secretary of Agriculture in the 1930s, is unclear to me. But his aloof attitude toward building a progressive political operation, his preference to leave the dirty work of organizing and vetting to others, and the party's (admirable? foolish?) commitment to internal democracy and amateurism, all made it difficult for the Progressive Citizens of America to survive the vicious attacks that were leveled against the organization. Contemporary progressives have at least internalized the understanding that progressive politics requires much more than a famous champion - it requires organizational strength, maintained over time and across election cycles.

[Christopher Saunders · Rating 5 out of 5]

Robust, immensely sympathetic look at Henry Wallace, the one-time progressive icon who history has damned as a flake, a kook and, at worst, a Soviet apologist. Culver (a former Senator from Wallace's home state of Iowa) and Hyde examine Wallace on his own terms, a well-connected farm boy from a deeply religious, conservative Iowa background who made good, and used his intelligence and skill for the betterment of the country. Culver and Hyde's biography proves most convincing examining Culver's service for Franklin Roosevelt: his innovative farm reforms while Secretary of Agriculture proved one of the New Deal's biggest and most lasting successes, and he made a forceful Vice President during the Second World War. Unfortunately, his falling out with the Democratic establishment after being ousted from FDR's ticket in 1944 drove him farther left, becoming an opponent of Truman's Cold War policies and calling for rapprochement with the Soviets, then running on a Progressive Party ticket in 1948 largely backed by Communists and radical leftists. These and Wallace's other eccentricities (his weaknesses for Theosophy and Eastern Philosophy) don't paint him in the most flattering light; by that point, he became almost a caricature of the woolly-headed liberal so open-minded his brain falls out. The authors acknowledge these shortcomings while still allowing Wallace his due as a giant of 20th Century progressivism, an idealistic force for good unfairly remembered for his shortcomings.

[Ted · Rating 4 out of 5]

Henry Wallace changed the world. Had FDR died about six months earlier, it might have been a revolution.

Our 33rd Vice President was born into farming royalty. Earnest from his earliest days, young Wallace would spend his days experimenting with plants and crops. He played with few other children, but struck up a friendship with Iowa State graduate George Washington Carver. As the farming prodigy continued his development, Henry's grandfather started an agricultural publication called Wallace's Farmer. Its contents generally consisted of biblical wisdom, farming news, and political commentary.

Henry, in his early 20s, spent his days waking up before dawn to work on his farm and experiment with his plants, then toiling as a writer in the offices of Wallace's Farmer. His hard work paid off; Henry co-founded a hybrid seed company that later produced massive revenues and - more importantly to Henry - optimized corn production.

Meanwhile, Henry's father, who had achieved agricultural fame through the Wallace's Farmer publication, was appointed Secretary of Agriculture under Harding. Alas, intra-cabinet squabbling arose between Wallace and then-Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover, resulting in a lifelong feud between the Wallaces and Hoover.

Once Hoover became President, Henry Wallace himself, now editor of the publication his grandfather originated, penned scathing editorials about Hoover's farm policy. He gained a name as a fervent advocate for government price controls in agriculture. With his mixture of political commentary and agricultural knowledge, Wallace was a natural fit for Secretary of Agriculture when FDR took the presidency.

Wallace's agricultural policies proved a resounding success, garnering him much national attention. In addition, his unusual habits made for good press: Wallace did unusual things for a politican, like experimenting with his diet, or throwing boomerangs in the park barefoot.

Unbeknownst to the public at that time, Wallace had also long been engaged in a spiritual oddysey. Raised in a sober, pious, Protestant household, Wallace had gradually developed some unorthodox views in his young adulthood. One day, Wallace wanted to discuss William James at Sunday School. Told by church elders that this was not an appropriate topic of Sunday School discussion, Wallace quietly stopped attending. He later exchanged letters with a series of new age teachers, among them the Russian painter Nicholas Roerich. A set of these letters - which included bizarre code language in which Wallace addressed Roerich as "Dear Guru" - would likely have derailed Wallace's bid for the Vice Presidency in 1940 had they been made public. But the release of the letters was averted after the FDR campaign threatened to reveal the infidelities of their GOP opponent Wendell Willkie.

With the Guru letters remaining under wraps, Wallace became Vice President in 1940. He removed the urinal and liquor cabinet from the VP office that Cactus Jack Garner had occupied for the previous eight years. And initially, Wallace found great success in office; indeed, he was thought to be an unusually active and influential VP. Over time, however, Wallace proved a bit too independent in office. His earnest liberal attitude frightened some. His sober and serious attitude gained few friends. As the 1944 convention approached, alternative candidates were sought.

That is where our story climaxes. Had Wallace won renomination in 1944, he would have remained Vice President, and would have ascended to the highest position in the country upon FDR's death. And this is an alternate historian's dream: Would Wallace have used the atomic bombs? What would his postwar policy have looked like? How would this unconvential agronomist have handled one of the most momentous periods in history?

Of course, we cannot know, as another unlikely figure, Harry Truman, was nominated for the vice presidency instead. And boy, was it close. At the 1944 Chicago convention, a huge popular demonstration broke out in the hall, and had the vote been held at that time, most present feel that Wallace would have won renomination. Seeing their chances slipping away, Truman supporters managed to hastily adjourn the convention moments before a vote was to be called. By that time passions had cooled, and the excitement of the Wallace demonstration had melted away. Truman won the VP nomination the following day.

Despite this somewhat embarassing ouster, Wallace continued on as Secretary of Commerce until now-President Truman unceremoniously hung him out to dry. Wallace had made some mildly controversial remarks in a public speech. Truman had actually reviewed and approved of them beforehand. After they were made, he reaffirmed his approval, but then tried to distance himself from them, and finally expressed his total disagreement with the comments, at which time he axed Wallace. The affair reflected very poorly on Truman's abilities. Wallace appeared to handle it with magnanimity. However, as he became estranged from the political establishment, he drifted further into impractical idealism.

In 1948, Wallace ran an embarassing presidential campaign as candidate for the New Party aka the Progressive Party. Some aspects of his campaign rhetoric, in which he advocated for "One World," seem a bit nutty today. Whether this campaign hurt or helped Truman is difficult to say. Yes, most of the folks who voted for Wallace would have voted for Truman instead had Wallace not been on the ballot. However, Wallace's stridently liberal approach also made Truman look centrist by comparison. While Truman could thus disclaim support of the far left, he may have drawn some of the moderate away from Dewey, who did not have a similar far right candidate to soften his image.

The foregoing review just hits the highlights of Henry Wallace's life. For the full story, read this book, which turns the life of this unique political figure into great reading.

[Randall Wallace · Rating 3 out of 5]

“Even a quarter century after Wallace’s death, descendants of his chickens are laying one of every three eggs eaten by Americans. Worldwide the figure approached 50%.” Henry A. Wallace was a scientist who saw that corn need constant care to survive, and that without human intervention “corn as we know it would survive only a few years.” HAW changed corn growing because previously corn was grown for looks and Henry thought “What’s looks to a hog?” and began growing for yield. His development of the double cross enabled hybridization commercially feasible. By 1924, Henry’s corn had taken the Gold medal. His new Hybrid seed use in Iowa “grew from less than 1% in 1933 to 99.5 percent ten years later.” HAW had a pantheistic streak that came two sources, George Washington Carver (who had taught him) and Theosophy. Henry wrote in his book, ‘Whose Constitution?’: “During the past 150 years, we white men have destroyed more soil, timber and wildlife than the Indians, left to themselves, would have destroyed in many thousands of years.” As Secretary of Agriculture, HAW had many “high spirited” luncheons with Clarence Darrow, Robert Frost and Sherwood Anderson. HAW said, “when things are bad, I like to do something about it.” HAW sees Japan is bent occupying rubber producing areas and sends Standard Oil’s secret synthetic rubber project info to FDR. Wallace does a deal with JFK’s dad Joseph trading cotton for natural rubber with England; the deal gives us “almost all of the U.S. rubber stockpiles at the end of 1939.” Under Wallace’s directive, the U.S. produced 800,000 tons of synthetic rubber in 1940. 15% of Costa Rica turns out to meet Henry Wallace when he visits there. HAW puts wheels in motion to increase Mexico’s food output dramatically, Norman Borlaug credits Wallace as the inspiration for the Green Revolution (HAW was not part of the GR’s large chemical input). Wallace was privy to Atomic Bomb info from 1941 on. Groves briefed Wallace personally on one occasion. This was years before Truman had a clue about the bomb.

At HAW’s apex of power, James Reston of the New York Times wrote, “Henry Wallace is now the administration’s head man on Capitol Hill, its defense chief, economic boss, and No.1 post-war planner. He is not only Vice-President, but ‘Assistant President.’” HAW says, “We cannot fight to crush Nazi brutality abroad and condone race riots at home.” One of the reasons, HAW was not kept as VP in ’44, was because he had written strongly against British colonialism and Churchill, Lord Halifax and the head of the British secret service turned on Wallace culminating in a rebuke to Cordell Hull demanding Wallace be fired. This is the book that tells you Claude Pepper was just one step from the podium when it was shut down, keeping Wallace at the ’44 convention from becoming VP again, and then soon President. Roosevelt once said that in order to win his first election, he had to adopt the South’s candidate, John Nance Gardner. (translation: If you want the votes of racists, you’ve got to give them something). When FDR died, Hubert Humphrey wrote HAW, “How I wish you were at the helm.” Reason for Hiroshima? Says HAW, Jimmy Byrnes was “deeply concerned that all this vast amount of money that had been invested in the Manhattan Project (2 billion dollars) would be wasted.” According to this book, few believed Wallace in ’48 to be a communist, but millions believed he was a communist dupe. However, HAW said, “the Communist party does not believe in God. I believe in God. The Communist Party does not believe in progressive capitalism. I believe in progressive capitalism.” Truman for political reasons adopts much of Wallace’s domestic program leaving voters only their disagreement on foreign policy. For example, in ’48, the Dixiecrats finally leave the Democrats and form their own party when HAW pressure makes Truman’s platform oppose the poll tax. To HAW, NATO was a ‘most flagrant’ violation of the UN Charter. Wallace’s caving on the Korean War splits the progressive party in two. “Henry A. Wallace once observed that he could barely remember a time during his youth when his father was not working.” Yet Henry always himself worked hard and slept but four to five hours a night.

This is a good book, however, not the best on HAW. The best book on Wallace to read is the much older 1976 one by Richard J. Walton. This Culver/Hyde book has a great cover, looks more expensive, and reads like an interesting well-paced People Magazine article about Henry. But, if you read it, you would never learn Henry was one of America’s greatest radicals. If that was the Hyde/Culver thesis, Doris Kearns Goodwin would certainly not have written the front blurb. Walton’s is a much more hardcore book – it pointed out, like Oliver Stone’s ‘Untold History of the United States’, and like Studs Terkel’s view of Wallace, that Wallace’s foreign policy stand against his own party in ’48 was such a principled courageous stand that Studs said that Henry was one of the three greatest leaders (along with FDR and MLK) of the 20th century. To understand the true importance of Henry A. Wallace you must read not only the Walton book, and the Oliver Stone book and great TV series, but also Mark L. Kleinman’s amazing book, ‘A World of Hope, A World of Fear: Henry A Wallace, Reinhold Niebuhr and American Liberalism’. However, if simply you want to relax with Doris Kearns Goodwin and enjoy only the non-political implications of Henry A. Wallace, then relax – Culver/Hyde is your book.

[Emory · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great book about a great man. It's crazy to see Wallace's ideas for things like universal healthcare, public daycare, dismantling of the military industrial complex, etc. that are still being advocated for today, be discussed in the 1940s. He was ahead of his time and ours as well.

[Bruce · Rating 4 out of 5]

If breadth of vision were the number one quality and emphasis were placed on that Henry A. Wallace
who came agonizingly close to becoming our 33rd president should have had the job. Unfortunately
he was a man who did not come to power in the traditional route.

Wallace was the third member of his family to bear that name. His grandfather was an early settler
in Iowa and founded a newspaper circulated throughout the state named Wallace's Farmer. The
tradition was carried on by Henry C. Wallace and later by his grandson Henry A. Wallace who was born
in Iowa in 1888.

Wallace's Farmer was a journal dedicated to scientific agriculture and all the Wallaces believed in it
fervently. Our Henry in fact was a scientist and developed his own brand of hybrid corn. But it was
more than agriculture that consumed him. He was curious also about religion and philosophy and
delved into that all his life. It was his firm belief that good agriculture and an equitable food disposition could solve hunger and poverty in the world, Wallace always thought in those terms.
The Wallace family were progressive Republicans and Henry C. Wallace was made Secretary of
Agriculture.

Where he got into a bitter feud with Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover and they became enemies.
American agriculture did not share in the post war Roaring 20s boom. Hoover opposed relief
there as he believed in the free market and he was successful in having his beliefs carried in the
cabinet and the administrations of Harding and Coolidge. Henry C. Wallace died suddenly in 1924
And Herbert Hoover became our 31st president in 1928.

Just in time for the Great Depression to hit. The farmers with surpluses greater than ever and
others whose farms became dust bowls due to lack of scientific application were worse off than
ever. Hoover took a bad beating for re-election in 1932 and Franklin Roosevelt named another man
named Henry A. Wallace as his Agriculture Secretary.

By this time Wallace had shed himself of the Republican party and became a New Deal Democrat.
His biggest booster was Eleanor Roosevelt.

Wallace could lay claim to being the greatest Agriculture Secretary we've ever had. He put through
a number of reforms but his greatest work the Agricultural Adjustment Act was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. Still while he was Agriculture Secretary that vote shifted
to the Democratic column.

He was also fastidiously loyal to FDR, loyalty not always reciprocated. When FDR was nominated
for an unprecedented third term he foisted Wallace on the Democratic convention. They won and
Wallace became Vice President.

Decent man that he was Wallace gave all a fair hearing. The lofty goals of Marxism about redistribution were music to his ears. Sadly he gave Joseph Stalin's Soviet Union a little too much
fairness. Some of what he said came back to haunt him.

The greatest open secret of 1944-45 was the declining state of FDR's health and many in the
Democratic party did not want to see Henry Wallace as president. Much has been written about how Wallace got dumped and how a reluctant FDR was convinced to do it. It was Senator Harry
Truman of Missouri who replaced Wallace. But FDR also replaced conservative Texas Democrat
Jesse Jones as Secretary of Commerce with Wallace. That set up an impossible situation for
Harry Truman when he became the 33rd president on April 12, 1945.

Wallace's ideas on foreign policy included a rapprochement with the Soviet Union which sure differed radically from Truman. Eventually he had to go and did in 1946.

After that Wallace and Glen Taylor of Idaho were nominated for president and vice president by the
Progressive Party, a left wing group who found Truman not radical enough. As we know Truman
won re-election.

Much has been written about the 1948 election where Truman was supposed to be a sure loser.
Wallace wound up doing far worse than he thought. Some of his left wing pronouncements were
skewered in the GOP newspapers which were the majority in the print medium. Some of his other
statements on religion, philosophy and other subjects came back to haunt him. Wallace can be
best compared to Horace Greeley whose various pronouncements over 30 years on various subjects
came back savagely to haunt him.

The only state where Wallace took a significant portion of the vote was New York and he probably
gave Tom Dewey the state he was governor of. He got no electoral votes. And anyone associated
with his campaign got the tar of the Red Scare in those McCarthy days.

Wallace was pretty aloof in the last years of his life. In 1964 he came down with Lou Gehrig's
disease and died the following year.

I wish all our seekers of office had the breadth of vision that Henry Wallace had. I also wish that
those who have it also have the judgment to be occasionally discreet and strategically retreat every
so often to live and fight another day.

As that great philosopher Kenny Rogers opined, 'know when to hold them, know when to fold them'.

[Marvin · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the most enjoyable and satisfying ways to read history is through biographies. In biographies we get to know a person intimately: we read their mail, learn their likes and dislikes, discover their strengths and weaknesses, share their ideas, revel in their accomplishments, and empathize with their failures. Biographies are one historical genre where straightforward storytelling is still the norm. And stories that biographies tell, unlike many historical tales, have a clearly defined beginnings and endings. Furthermore, the best biographies reveal as much about the subject’s “times” as they do about his or her life.

All of these strengths characterize the best biography of an Iowan to come out in recent years, John C. Culver and John Hyde’s American Dreamer: The Life and Times of Henry A. Wallace. It helps that Culver and Hyde chose as their subject one of the most fascinating and significant figures in Iowa history. And unlike many “famous Iowans,” Wallace’s ties to Iowa were deep and lasting, so his biography tells readers a lot about Iowa history as well as the history of the nation.

The authors are thorough in dealing with the various aspects of Wallace’s remarkably wide-ranging career. They account for his years as a farm editor, when he and his family had an immense impact on Iowa farmers. They also make a fascinating story out of his role in the development and marketing of hybrid seed corn, which transformed Iowa agriculture in the twentieth century. In both roles, Wallace was, the authors argue, “the prophet and evangelist, the teacher and preacher of agricultural scientific advancement.” The authors also uncover Wallace’s vast intellectual curiosity, which led to religious experimentation that many Americans found bizarre. Other than that, however, there is little in this biography about his private, family life, the one significant gap in the authors’ coverage.

Although the authors offer a comprehensive account of Wallace’s life, it’s clearly his political life that they find most interesting. There, the narrative really comes to life. This should not be surprising given the authors’ backgrounds—Culver as a former U.S. representative and senator from Iowa; Hyde as a reporter in the Des Moines Register’s Washington bureau. And there are great stories to tell here: Wallace’s leading role—as Secretary of Agriculture, Secretary of Commerce, and Vice-President—in the development of President Roosevelt’s New Deal policies; his replacement on the ticket in 1944 by Harry Truman; his tragic run for the presidency in 1948 on the Progressive Party ticket.

Wallace, most readers will know before they begin this book, was no typical politician. Culver and Hyde confirm that perception. In their account Wallace was first and foremost a man of ideas, an “American dreamer.” Wallace’s opponents did not hesitate to use that characterization against him. For Culver and Hyde, however, it is a compliment. They insist that he was a dreamer in the best of a long tradition of American dreamers stretching back to Thomas Jefferson. They repeatedly defend Wallace against charges of political naiveté. Over and over they show instances when he was an effective bureaucratic infighter when necessary, but he was unwilling to obfuscate or be duplicitous. At times when he appeared naïve, such as during the 1944 Democratic Convention that denied him the vice-presidency, he knew the potential consequences of his actions and chose to pursue them anyway. The authors’ repeated efforts to make this point give their biography an ironic twist: in a book dedicated to the proposition that their subject was a man of ideas, an American dreamer in the best sense of the word, one dedicated to bringing his dreams to life, their account of his political life devotes more time to bureaucratic infighting than to ideology.

Whatever his dream, whatever the battle he engages in to pursue that dream, Wallace always appears in this book as a heroic figure, at times nearly alone in his heroism, and all his enemies are backroom wheelers and dealers with impure motives. Some readers may wish for a more subtle treatment, but many others will finish this book convinced that this heroic Iowan whose remarkable life was unfairly tarnished at the end of his career deserves the resuscitation that John Culver and John Hyde’s impressive biography performs so admirably.

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

It’s fascinating to wonder what the world might have been like had Henry Wallace become president of the United States.

No Cold War perhaps, no arms race with the Russians, no domino theories to defend against global Communism, no Korean War nor Bay of Pigs debacles, no need to engage in the disastrous Vietnam War. No segregation. There’d certainly be no need for a wall between the US and Mexico.

Wallace was undone in a shameful night of chicanery at the 1944 Democratic Convention which opened the door for Harry Truman to get the VP ticket and, ultimately, the keys to the White House.

Until then, Wallace’s progressive ideas had saved US agriculture from the boom-and-bust of unfettered market forces and his wider philosophies helped shape FDR’s New Deal.

Fully two years before WW2 was won, while serving as Roosevelt’s vice-president, Wallace was thinking deeply about the peace.

How would the US switch from a military economy while maintaining full employment, how would it raise standards of education and improve health care, what kind of world would be built in the aftermath and what role should America play?

In 1941, Time magazine publisher Henry Luce envisioned a post-war “American century” in which the US could “exert…the full impact of our influence, for such purposes as we see fit and by such means as we see fit.”

Wallace responded with his “century of the common man” speech in which colonialism would end and there would be neither military nor economic imperialism.

By 1944 he was prophetically warning against the dangers of American Fascism, writing in the New York Times:

“The American fascists are most easily recognized by their deliberate perversion of truth and fact. Their newspapers and propaganda carefully cultivate every fissure of disunity... They claim to be super-patriots, but they would destroy every liberty guaranteed by the Constitution. They demand free enterprise, but are the spokesmen for monopoly and vested interest. Their final objective toward which all their deceit is directed is to capture political power so that, using the power of the state and the power of the market simultaneously, they may keep the common man in eternal subjection.”

Widening an existing rift in the Democratic Party, the pejoratively dubbed ‘Dreamer’ was becoming a problem and the conservative, pro-business wing wanted him out.

They persuaded FDR, unwell and still consumed by the war, to ignore progressive advisers and to allow Truman to go up against Wallace as the VP candidate. And even though Wallace won the first ballot he didn’t have enough votes to secure the nomination.

From there, the party machinery went to work, deals were done, Wallace was crushed and when FDR died in April, 1945, the little-known, little-regarded senator from Missouri took the helm.

[Rick Elinson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Why had I never heard of Henry Wallace? He was amazing. Wallace was a scientific farmer from Iowa who was instrumental in greatly increasing agricultural yields through hybrid corn and breeding of chickens, corn, and other crops. As Secretary of Agriculture under FDR, Wallace introduced production controls for price stabilization, food stamps, and school lunch programs. As VP in FDR's third term, he spoke against fascism and the genetic idea of an aryan race. He constantly argued for finding ways to peace, and a key element was ensuring an adequate food supply. He was done in by a strange attraction to mysticism and by not being a Russian basher, when the Red Scare of the early 1950's was on. The book is a very comprehensive treatment of Wallace's life, derived from primary resources. While it is often nice to have direct quotes from Wallace, his supporters and opponents, the authors could have made their points more cogent by judicious trimming. Nonetheless, I am so happy to learn of this scientific, passionate, humble liberal genius.

[Daniel P. Brummel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Simply, the most bizarre life I have read about. Not a story of overcoming hardships but a life of following intrigue, passion and education. The often forgotten life of Henry A. Wallace should be reexamined by the dreamers of today.

Highly recommend

[Bob Wake · Rating 5 out of 5]

[Reviewed in 2001]

An unjustly neglected figure in American political history, Henry A. Wallace (1888-1965) is usually remembered—if at all—in vague terms as a hapless footnote to the 1948 national election between President Harry S. Truman and Thomas E. Dewey. As the presidential candidate of the Progressive Party, Wallace was vilified as a third-party spoiler and a Communist dupe, charges that hung in the air for decades and contributed to his marginalized legacy. Two events during the 2000 election year conspired to restore Iowa native Henry Wallace to a degree of prominence. When Ralph Nader’s Green Party candidacy briefly flickered to life with press coverage and polling momentum, statistically-minded journalists were quick to inform us that Nader had mounted the first significant left-wing third-party presidential bid since Wallace’s 1948 campaign. (Nader would ironically come to be maligned in a manner sadly similar to the treatment afforded Wallace, and both men ended up capturing near-identical electoral percentages; 2.4 percent for Wallace; and 2.7 percent for Nader.) But the milestone that truly marked 2000 as the “Year of Henry Wallace” was the triumphant publication of John C. Culver and John Hyde’s majestic biography, American Dreamer: A Life of Henry A. Wallace.

Ten years in the writing, American Dreamer recounts in vivid detail the full breadth of Wallace’s accomplishments, particularly his key role as Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s crusading Secretary of Agriculture (1933-40) during the depths of the Depression. He later also served one term as Roosevelt’s vice president, and briefly as secretary of commerce. The phrase “reinventing government” has become an empty slogan in recent times, but FDR’s New Deal was a breathtaking experiment in social democratic reform. Although it’s generally accepted today that the New Deal’s achievements were modest (the Second World War, not the New Deal, was the spark that rekindled the economy), the first two years of FDR’s initial term in office were unprecedented in the scope of legislative remedies sought and enacted.

Henry Wallace’s activist leadership of the Department of Agriculture, according to authors Culver and Hyde, “broke new ground on every front—economic, social, scientific—and permanently changed the relationship between government and agriculture…” Wallace brought soil conservation and erosion control to the forefront, as well as initiating crop insurance programs, land-use planning, and credit assistance to sharecroppers. His concept of the “ever-normal granary” was instrumental in building the nation’s stockpile of grain reserves. American Dreamer is rich with fascinating facts:

Under Wallace the department’s research center… became the largest and most varied scientific agricultural station in the world… The department’s scientists combated plant and animal diseases and pests, from grasshoppers and chinch bugs to brucellosis and Dutch elm disease… Over fifty varieties of wheat were developed at the department during the 1930s. Thatcher wheat, which didn’t exist when Wallace came into office, was growing on 14.5 million acres in the United States and Canada when he left.

An endlessly curious part-time scientist himself, Wallace was one of the inventors of hybrid seed corn. In 1926 he founded the Hi-Bred Corn Company, which later became Pioneer Hi-Bred and made Wallace’s wife and heirs enormously wealthy after his death (the company was purchased by Du Pont in the 1990s for nearly ten billion dollars).

American Dreamer wouldn’t qualify as a state-of-the-art political biography without a scandal or character flaw to exploit, and the authors have happily complied. Wallace’s “dark side,” however, was endearingly kooky. A lifelong fascination with mysticism and the occult appears to have made him an easy mark for charlatans, among them a faux-Indian medicine man and opera composer named Charles Roos, who was given to addressing Wallace as “Poo-Yaw” and “Chief Cornplanter.” Wallace considered Roos a soul-mate. In the 1930s the two men purchased a tract of land together near Taylor Falls, Minnesota intended for spiritual retreats where they could, in Wallace’s words, “find the religious key note of the new age.”

More politically damaging was his friendship and correspondence with an expatriate Russian artist and “guru”—complete with bald head and Fu Manchu mustache—named Nicholas Roerich. Wallace eventually gave Roerich a Department of Agriculture expense account and sent him on a $75,000 expedition to Central Asia in search of drought resistant grasses. The raucous story of Roerich’s fleecing of Wallace and the U.S. Government is straight out of a Preston Sturges comedy and is one of the many highlights of American Dreamer. Regrettably for Wallace, a cache of the nutty letters he penned to Roerich was made public and unquestionably tarnished his reputation. Critic Dwight Macdonald famously dismissed Wallace as a “corn-fed mystic” during the 1948 presidential campaign.

Wallace’s Progressive Party run for the presidency was plagued by mishaps and blunders (not to mention the familiar criticism that Progressives were destroying the Democratic Party and helping to elect a reactionary Republican). But there were heroics, too. On his campaign tour of the American South, Wallace became the first presidential candidate to refuse speaking engagements before segregated crowds; nor would he stay in segregated hotels or eat in segregated restaurants. Threats of violence forced some of his speeches to be canceled. One of Wallace’s supporters was stabbed. Only once did his public composure give way to anger: after being pelted yet again with eggs during a heated demonstration in Burlington, North Carolina, Wallace grabbed a bystander and shouted at him, “Are you an American? Am I in America?” Thanks to this impressive and indispensable biography, Henry Wallace’s remarkable life is at last securely woven into the fabric of our history.

[Peter Corrigan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I spent 6+ years in Iowa quite some time (1997-2003) ago--the name Wallace was a big in Des Moines with stuff named after him, (or his family) so I caught a vague interest in the guy and always meant to follow-up. My recent read of '1946' piqued that curiosity again, so I picked this up and was not disappointed. Turns out I drove to work every day (or night) almost right by the headquarters (and original site) of company he founded in 1926, Pioneer Hi-Bred in Johnston, IA (just north of Des Moines), it's a huge multi-national today.

I found this quote somewhere else which might be a bit overstated but it comes from Studs Terkel, the great oral historian: 'There are three great Americans of the 20th century; two are household names, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Martin Luther King. The third should be: Henry A. Wallace'. Quite the tribute although how accurate Terkel was is debatable, but clearly Wallace is vastly underrated. After reading this book I think most would agree. He was far more interesting and complex than almost every politician you will encounter--scientist, administrator, politician, visionary, searcher. Born in Adair County, IA just west of Des Moines, Wallace came from an influential farm family. His grandfather (Henry Wallace) was the editor and owner of a prominent farm journal, Wallaces’ Farmer (which continues to this day under other ownership). His father (Henry C. Wallace) worked on the journal, was a Professor at Iowa State University, and later became the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture from 1921-1924 under Warren G. Harding.

Henry A. attended Iowa State and continued a lifelong interest in agriculture and especially that quintessential Iowa crop, corn. In 1924, Wallace developed a hybrid corn called Copper Cross that won a gold medal at the Iowa Corn Yield Test. This was the first time a hybrid had beaten standard open pollinated strains. In May, 1926 to market the hybrid strain, Wallace co-founded (with nine other men) the Pioneer Hi-Bred Corn Company. As told by the authors, the story of corn hybridization considered by some to be the first leg of the 'green revolution', was started not in the Corn Belt but on agricultural research sites on Long Island and Connecticut! Starting with near zero precent in the mid-1920s, by the mid-1940s some 98 percent of all planted corn in Iowa (and elsewhere) was hybrid, with much of it sold by Pioneer. Yields skyrocketed and of course the advent of direct genetic engineering increased those yields further. Wallace was intensely curious but first and foremost a scientist. He seemed to be constantly seeking answers to questions with additional data. One story that really caught my attention (p. 93) was his attempt in about 1930-31? to establish correlations between weather data and positions of the moon and planets--a bit 'loopy' to be sure, but to do the analysis Wallace and a cohort entered data from the Des Moines Weather Bureau on 18,262 punch cards for analysis on an IBM card-sorting machine! Obviously the project did not go anywhere but the effort was forward looking and innovative, characteristics that he carried forward in many endeavors.

Wallace went on to become U.S. Secretary of Agriculture from 1933–1940 under FDR and key architect of the New Deal. He demonstrated the best practices in agricultural statistics and econometrics throughout career, including his time as perhaps the most important Secretary to have served in Washington. Wallace demanded an evidence-based set of agricultural policies and practices (through statistics and data gathering), was the prime initiator of the annual Agricultural Outlook Report of the USDA. The Henry A. Wallace Beltsville Agricultural Research Center also known as the National Agricultural Research Center outside was named for him. He is arguably the single individual responsible for the first Department of Statistics in the U.S.; this is due to Wallace’s connections with George Snedecor. He was the lead architect of numerical procedures (in the 1920s) for solving the normal equations.

Wallace's transition from bureaucrat to politician occurred throughout the eventful 1930s as he and other New Deal appointees worked incessantly to implement and sell their ideas and policies within their various agencies. The debates on how to extricate the country from the Great Depression had much in common with the current day as the tension between socialist and capitalist ideas continue to frame the politics of this country. The 'social reformers...saw their task as the overhaul of a corrupt capitalist system' (p.153). Sounds like AOC or Mamadani today. It was a fascinating and period and the authors provide a reasonably balanced assessment while maintaining the drama of the collision of ideas. Alger Hiss worked as a lawyer in Wallace's DoA well before becoming the one of the key faces of the McCarthy era! Another issue of course was the role of the Courts in the rule of the country and again the arguments both ways are uncannily similar. Time and again the courts stood in the way of New Deal initiatives just as they are at the forefront of the 'anti-Trump' resistance. Wallace was perhaps at his best in his recognition of the deleterious impact of rampant capitalism on the environment (p. 162). Many of those ideas and more were spelled out by book he managed to knock out in 1936 in the midst of his Secretarial duties: 'Whose Constitution: An Inquiry into the General Welfare'. Although the authors suggest much of it was 'ghost-written' (by AI, no doubt) though not the important ideas on soil conservation. Either way he had to approve of the ideas and the court battles and philosophical divide marked a turning point as he shifted from technocrat to political warrior.

All this was before he entered 'politics' per se and that happened with his surprise nomination and victory as Vice-President at the Democratic convention of 1940, Roosevelt's 3rd term. The authors (one a former U.S. Senator, the other a seasoned Des Moines Register journalist) excel in relating the drama, chaos and back-room politicking at this convention but especially at the 'astonishing' (p. 353) 1944 convention in Chicago (of course) that summarily replaced Wallace with Harry Truman. It was not FDR's finest moment to be sure. On July 20, 1944 (the same day Hitler was nearly assassinated by Claus von Stauffenberg) Wallace was barely blocked amidst intense back-room maneuvers that thwarted the huge acclamation within Chicago Stadium packed with nearly 40,000 (the seating capacity was supposedly 26,000!) that nearly carried him to victory. He would of course have become President a few months later on April 12, 1945 if the convention went differently. A difference-maker? Who knows.

The authors describe Wallace 'as close to being a Renaissance man as anyone in American public service since Thomas Jefferson' (p. 189). His trip to Mexico shortly after becoming Vice President exemplify the breadth and depth of his curiosity and in interest. It sort of defies belief today--he DROVE from DC in a two-car caravan to the border at Laredo and continued (in a larger caravan) on to Mexico City stopping along the way to meet locals, inspect agricultural fields and chat in his limited Spanish. He then stayed for a month continuing to inspect corn fields and making suggestions for increasing the pitiful yields in 'La tierra del maiz', the land of its origin. An outgrowth of the trip was the establishment of an agricultural station where a young Iowa agronomist Norman Borlaug started working in 1948. He was later given a Nobel Peace Prize for his work increasing agricultural yields but credited Wallace as the 'inspiration' for the Green revolution (p. 251). Such a trip is a remarkable thing to contemplate today and perhaps unthinkable across cartel-controlled Mexico today. Progress? His trip in 1944 to Russia, central Asia and China was also astounding. There seems little doubt that his drift toward collectivism started in agriculture and his first-hand observations of the crisis on American farms in the 1920s and through the 30s, but was nurtured further by these trips abroad.

The Wallace story after his removal from the 1944 ticket and subsequent run for President on a 3rd party ticket in 1948 has probably been covered far more than his earlier accomplishments. It resulted in his fall from an almost revered stature (at least for the American Left) to near demonization (in the 'mainstream') as either a straight-up communist or at best an 'appeaser' of the USSR. The authors do a fine job I think in debunking the former completely and casting substantial doubt on the latter. It is interesting to compare the description of Democratic Party of the Wallace era (p. 359) with today's version, it was is clearly no longer the party of the ordinary person, recent surveys show that it is number one the party of the ruling elite and the technocrat class. it is also true that many of the goals of that Democratic party have in fact been achieved. Unfortunately, the cost of delivering those benefits (entitlements) combined with the increasingly deranged military-industrial complex spending (that Eisenhower warned of) have combined to put us at a national debt of $38 trillion, a totally unsustainable situation.

I became a fan of Henry A. Wallace somewhere along the way--his intense scientific outlook (even as he measured his decline from ALS in his final years), lack of formality, blunt but fact-based speaking, devotion to physical exercise and games, love of languages and other cultures (especially South American), his lack of guile, loyalty and general optimism. Even his striving for spiritual answers (however odd at times). He reminded me of parts of myself, even to the point that he seemed to be the only American politician in 1946-49 that acknowledged the sacrifice of the USSR in the Great Patriotic War. That is something I have ranted about myself on more than a few occasions in recent years as Russia hate approaches Cold War levels over the Ukraine debacle that the U.S. had a large hand in creating! Yes, we might have differed on some of the political issues but you have the feeling that a spirited and information-based debate was far more likely to occur with Wallace than the insult hurling that passes for political discourse these days. Although he apparently hated alcohol which is where we have to part ways!

The book cover featuring Wallace from a Grant Wood portrait (also the front cover of Time magazine September 23, 1940; one of 4 Wallace appearances on the Time front page) is superb! I give this bio 4.5 stars and while not at the level of a Robert Caro (few are!) it is deserving of the highest of praise, round up!

[Greg · Rating 5 out of 5]

I knew little of Henry Wallace as a young man, even though I was 22 the year he died, but I did know the two men who later wrote this biography of Wallace – Iowa Senator John Culver and The Des Moines Register reporter John Hyde. That was back in the day when Iowa senators were known for their intelligence, integrity, and national influence – decades before the sad tribalism of the 21st century had reduced such people to puppets of the wealthy Right – and when the The Des Moines Register regularly won Pulitzers and other awards for the quality of their reporting – decades before the then family-owned newspaper was acquired by the Gannett chain that subsequently reduced this once nationally prominent paper of quality to the sadly diminished paper of today.

After having read this interestingly detailed and fascinating account of a very multi-faceted man, I better understand why I had heard so little of him in the ‘50s and ‘60s, for he had fallen victim – as had so many other men and women of integrity – to the Right-wing mania of those Cold War times: rabid anti-communism which clumped together anything, and anyone, left-of-center as dangerous communists or communist-sympathizers.

Henry Wallace, of all the people of that time, could honestly not be reduced to any simple category; he was just too complex, too deep, of a person. I think the sculptor Jo Davidson captured this aspect of Wallace beautifully in her bronze sculpture entitled, The Seer.

One of the things that can be said about him with assurance is that he was a quintessential Iowan rooted in the land. He was a farmer at heart, and an incredibly advanced scientist regarding the soil and all that grew from it.

One of the things that can be said about him with assurance is that he was a quintessential Iowan rooted in the land. He was a farmer at heart, and an incredibly advanced scientist regarding the soil and all that grew from it. His father bequeathed his own knowledge of the land to him, and his grandfather left the family a strong religious faith that, while somewhat amorphous – Wallace never thought of himself as a particular “brand” of Christian – left him with convictions about the holiness of the land, air, and water of our lovely planet and with a deep concern for every human’s right to enjoy the fruits of life.

This excellent biography covers much of what happened in the United States – and Europe as well – from the late 19th through the middle of the 20th centuries. Not surprisingly, it also includes great detail about the ups and downs of agriculture during this time, and of the many contributions Wallace – and his father before him – made to experiments that resulted in crops with increased yield while also being more disease and drought-resistant.

Wallace was able to do this in part because of his early and intensive use of statistics in evaluating seeds and kept incredibly detailed records which helped convince skeptics of the truth of his conclusions. As one prominent example, at a time (early 20th century) when the “best corn” was determined by looks – its color, the fullness of each granule – he stubbornly insisted that looks didn’t matter to a pig, but that what mattered was taste and yield. Because of his work, half or more of the corn consumed around the world today is the result of his work in genetics.

Also like his father before him, Henry Wallace was a consummate writer. For many years his family owned and controlled various magazine targeted at the farm audience – such as Wallace’s Farmer – and he wrote many of the articles in them himself.

Moreover, just as his father was tapped to be Secretary of Agriculture by President Harding, so also was he appointed Secretary of Agriculture by FDR, which gave him a wider, even world-wide audience for his work on, and theories concerning, all aspects of agriculture. He was an admirer of the president’s wide-ranging curiosity and willingness to experiment but, like many others in the New Deal, sometimes questioned the depth of FDR’s understanding or, for that matter, commitment since FDR relied greatly on his own instincts, ability to personally charm others, and an ear tuned to political winds.

In 1940 FDR tapped him for his vice-presidential running mate. The election was won soundly, and Wallace felt that he and the president made good working partners who trusted each other. And that was true – to a point. But even at the outset of Roosevelt’s third term, it was obvious to Wallace and others in the administration that the previous eight years of wrestling with the Depression and an increasingly vocal and strident opposition had weakened the man.

Even though Wallace enjoyed widespread popularity in the Democratic Party, by the approach of the 1944 election the more conservative factions within the Democratic Party’s leadership maneuvered to oust him and to replace him with a man more to their own liking – and also one more able to be manipulated by them.

FDR’s role in this was not his best. He alternatively assured Wallace personally that he – Wallace – remained his personal choice but then also, under pressure from conservative national politicians, signed papers indicating his willingness to have others given careful consideration, too, including Truman.

Wallace fought gamely and above board, but the “bosses” got their way at the national convention, even though Wallace initially led other nominees for the vice-presidency by a substantial margin. Substantial, but not enough to prevail.

As was made clear in the books on Kennan and Lippmann that I have read recently, the result was an unintended disaster, for when FDR died suddenly in early 1945 it was Truman and not Wallace who then assumed the presidency. Unlike Wallace, who had been intimately familiar with and deeply involved in supporting the main programs of the New Deal, Truman had not. Even more fatefully, Truman knew nothing of the program to develop the atomic bomb, nor had he been kept abreast of the agreements which FDR and Stalin had reached with regard to the postwar world, most importantly, those that granted the Soviet Union a de facto sphere of interest in central and eastern Europe. (As an important, factual aside: Roosevelt did not “give up” any territories to the Soviets that they did not already occupy with military force. The de facto sphere of interest was merely that over which the Soviets already had control.)

“Some men see things as they are, and ask why. I dream of things that never were, and ask why not.” (Robert F. Kennedy, quoting George Bernard Shaw)

As the title of this book indicates, however, what most struck many about Henry Wallace was his idealism, his belief in and hope for the “common man,” as he put it, and his life-long drive to work for improvements in the diet, environment, and political relations that would allow this “common man” to thrive and prosper. This meant that he championed efforts directed especially towards the poor domestically and internationally, and he repeatedly called for the United States to direct more attention to the Americas where, he felt, efforts to improve crops would have the greatest effect.

His detractors – and, especially during and after the Red Scare drummed up by the far Right and Senator McCarthy of Wisconsin, he came to have many – contemptuously called him a “dreamer,” meaning someone detached from reality, someone who could not be trusted to do what had to be done in the “real world.” Despite the Cold War and the vicious domestic ideological infighting that was central to it, Wallace maintained his confidence in “the people” and resisted repeated calls to join one “side” or the other.

After his death from what is now called Lou Gehrig’s disease in 1955, his reputation began to grow more favorable again. And I think he was that rare figure that all too infrequently appears in our national life whose vision of true peace and prosperity really did mark him as a singularly great man.

[Matthew · Rating 5 out of 5]

Henry Wallace was an incredible person. He introduced hybrid corn to the American farmer and founded Pioneer Hi-Bred. He passionately worked in agronomy, developing new genetic lines of plants and chickens. At one point, one out of every three eggs eaten was from a chicken descended from one of Henry Wallace's. He is also credited with being the father of the green revolution.

On top of all that, he was Secretary of Agriculture, Vice President, and even Commerce Secretary. He was an avid New Dealer and was in line to be the successor to FDR but was ousted by powerful corporate Democrats and party insiders that saw him as a dreamer and a threat.

The world we live in today would be very different and better if Henry Wallace had become President.

[Stephen Shank · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredible book about an unsung hero of American history. A fascinating account of a precocious farmer from Iowa who would go on to revolutionize agriculture and play a pivotal role in the Second World War. How different the world would be, had we heeded his warnings about the impending Cold War. That so-called civilized people do not follow leaders like Henry Wallace is much to our eternal detriment, and something I hope to see reversed in my lifetime.

[Jason · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the best biographies I have ever read. If you enjoy biographies and/or American political history, then do not miss this book. Highly recommended!

[Jim Gallen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read “American Dreamer” in preparation for an on-line book club sponsored by the State Historical Society of Iowa. Why else would I, a conservative, read a biography about an impractical, Communist dupe who got dumped from the vice-presidency by the Democratic Party and waged a Quixotic Progressive Party campaign for president? I found that Henry was much more.

Henry A. Wallace was the scion of a prominent Iowa farming family. He followed his grandfather and father, also Henrys, as editor of the “Wallace Farmer”, an agricultural newspaper. He would have had a very successful career even if he had never entered politics and government service. An agricultural experimenter, Wallace founded Pioneer Hi-Bred Corn Company that revolutionized the growth of corn throughout the world and significantly increased the Wallace family fortune. Henry was obsessed with transforming corn agriculture. Entering a field in which farmers chose their best ears for next year’s seed, he developed a superior hybrid corn and then convinced farmers to use it. Both the Wallace Farmer and Pioneer remain in business today. He also developed an interest in the breading of chickens.

Too prominent to remain in private industry, the Wallaces were summoned to government service. The middle, Henry C., served as Secretary of Agriculture under presidents Harding and Coolidge, 1921-1924, during which service he clashed with Secretary of Commerce, and Undersecretary of Everything Else I Henry C.’s mind, Herbert Hoover. His son Henry A. was summoned to the same position by Franklin Roosevelt, serving from 1933-1940. Gaining the respect and friendship of the President, Wallace was, at Roosevelt’s insistence, placed on the ticket for vice-president in 1940. In that post he was entrusted with executive responsibility beyond that of any previous vice-president. During the book club meeting it was suggested that he may have started an arc, interrupted by Alben Barkley, of vice-presidential influence to the point of being the most powerful vice-president until Dick Cheney. As Democratic leaders noticed FDR’s physical decline, they insisted on Henry’s replacement in 1944. He did transfer to the Commerce Department which he led from 1945-1946. Dismayed by what Henry regarded as a retreat from progressive policies of Franklin Roosevelt, he left government service and was drawn into the nascent Progressive Party, being nominated as its candidate for president in 1948. Branded as being run by Communists, the Party and campaign tarnished Wallace’s reputation and was his final venture into politics.

This lengthy volume held my attention throughout by the fabulous tale it unwinds. It portrays a man his family described as “The Smartest Wallace in 200 Years.” The versatility of this scientist, linguist, politician and family man is intriguing. The concept that a vice-president elect would choose to study agriculture in Mexico, be asked by the president to represent him at the inauguration of the President of Mexico and accomplish the mission by driving a Plymouth from Washington to Mexico City, with in-Spanish discussions with farmers along the way, boggles the mind.

I believe that the post-war world has been “The American Century”, not the “Century of the Common Man” as Wallace advocated. I agree with the book club comment that we are fortunate to have had Harry Truman as president in the late 1940s rather than Henry Wallace. I am, however, convinced that Henry A. Wallace met the standard of greatness: He made a difference. I am glad I read “American Dreamer” for what learned from it

[J.M. Hushour · Rating 4 out of 5]

More like 3.5 stars.
For those who don't know, Henry Wallace of Iowa was FDR's VP during his third term, had a peculiar political career before and afterwards due to his failed presidential run as a third party candidate, and is probably one of the more misunderstood and badly maligned political figures of the 20th century.
This biography does a good job of rehabilitating Wallace's importance in the first half of the 20th century and does so in great, if sometimes tedious detail. The focus is welcome, but long sections on, for example, Department of Agriculture political wrangling and, of course, corn, might glaze your eyes over.
Wallace was a rare breed: the politician of principle, an almost Tolstoyan guy whose Protestant-pseudo-socialist upbringing in Iowa's farmlands was combined with an adult search for spiritual enlightenment (he was derided as a "mystic") meant that he was definitely soulful and not afraid to say so. His progressive ideas of peace and social equality were simply years ahead of his time, and he fell victim to proto-McCarthy America's fear of the "red menace". Branded a mystic, a Communist, and worse, FDR eventually had to force Wallace out as VP--Machiavellian political machinations form the backbone of much of this work--that didn't deter Wallace though who went against Truman in '48.
Anyway, a decent bio of a dedicated guy, if you're interested in America's weird distaste for third parties in politics or principled, unabashed would-be do-gooders (totally unacceptable in American politics), this will interest you.

[JerryDeanHalleck · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a detailed well-written book that is also a whitewash of Henry Wallace. The book tries to restore Wallace's rather tarnished image by presenting him as a "Man ahead of his times" and as a man who "could've stopped the cold war".

The fact that Wallace was a man of mediocre ability promoted far beyond his station is never addressed. And the authors simply ignore Wallace's communist connections. And the proven evidence he surrounded himself with Soviet Spies. Instead, the authors frame the issue, when do discuss it, as "arch-conservatives attack Wallace as pro-communist". And then hand-wave it away. "Wallace was certainly not pro communist" they assert without evidence. And then we're off to a discussion about Wallace's love of farmers and black folks.

And its be nice to think that Wallace was a big hearted liberal, who loved peace. But his nasty attitude towards his opponents and his full-throated desire to get the USA into WW II, and fight a "war to the knife", belies that. His desire to avoid a cold war, came not from a desire for peace, but from his liking of the USSR. Why fight a cold war, when Stalin was "Good ol' Uncle Joe?"

One can give him points for being for labor unions or civil rights, but then almost all liberals were for that. And he was in many ways an arrogant kook, with odd views and a self-rightious egotism unmatched by few politicans.

The book shows how you can present false history by ommission. This seems to be the standard Liberal/left historian approach in the wake of Soviet archives being opened. Now, that the full extent of Soviet spying and influence on Americans in the 30s and 40s is proven fact, their only defense is to simply not talk about it. Same with crimes of Stalin and the USSR. Just don't mention it.

[Patrick · Rating 3 out of 5]

Continuing my series of biographies of unsung liberal legends (beginning with Hubert Humphrey), we have Henry Wallace. I knew he had been Secretary of Agriculture and FDR’s second Vice President but did not know of his role in promoting hybrid crops and starting the Green Revolution or his crucial role in alerting FDR to the possibility of an atomic bomb or his role in managing essentially the entire US war economy. Wallace was a contradiction-a rational man of science who loved statistics and plant biology but also a self-professed mystic whose lifelong search for spiritual meaning lead him to be conned by various charlatans, including fake Indian “medicine men” and Russia emigre prophets producing some truly cringeworthy correspondence that later embarrassed him politically. Like most liberals of the 1940’s (Roosevelt included) he failed to appreciate Stalin for the monster he was. What the book doesn’t tell me though is how a man lauded for his cool demeanor and common sense became a wild-eyed progressive firebrand by the late 1940’s, culminating in his Quixotic third party run for president in 1948. There’s no explanation, no real buildup; it’s like he just woke up one day around the time he was dumped from the 1944 Democratic ticket a completely different person than he was before. I’d give the book 4 stars if it could tell me what happened.

[Jean Mehochko]

I finally finished this long and detailed book, and I now know A LOT about Henry Agard Wallace. It's almost unbelievable that he is largely forgotten. His family helped found the Farm Bureau, he pioneered much of the hybrid corn industry and, in fact, was one of the founders of thePioneer Hi-Bred company, he served as Secretary of Agriculture under FDR, and was FDR's Vice President during his third term.
But, most importantly, he was a visionary, self-educated in many areas, a dreamer as the book's title indicates. In light of recent history, he certainly understood the ramifications of U. S., Great Britain and Russia's policy decisions during and after WWII. The military escalation around the world, the use of the atomic bomb as a threat to coerce cooperation have all lead to the situations he predicated. He was much in favor of feeding the world, sharing knowledge, and providing non-military assistance as ways to unify countries. I wish we had tried it.
I recommend reading this book for insight into the politics of the 1930s - 1960s and learning about this very learned man.

[David Vaught · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a biography of a key leader in President Franklin Roosevelt's Presidency, first as his Secretary of Agriculture and then as Vice President in Roosevelt's third (but not fourth) term. The ideas of farm policy Wallace authored and advocated and implemented provide the basis for domestic farm policy since his time as Secretary of Agriculture. How he transitioned from being the first Republican in Roosevelt's cabinet to a liberal new dealer as Vice President eight years later is a fascinating history that is not well enough known. He was then dumped in the 1944 convention by the party bosses who wanted a safer, and less liberal, choice of Harry Truman who soon became President based on that selection in the party convention in 1944. The authors have dug deeply into the historical record to bring forth this very interesting historical story.

[London Storm · Rating 5 out of 5]

An incredible exploration of an incredible (almost) President of the United States, a man whose scope and range were truly impeccable by any measure, a man whose vision and dedication to the truth as he saw it was beyond all rebuke. It's a shame that Henry A. Wallace isn't revered for his contributions to the world we live in today through agriculture and agricultural policy alone, not to mention the incredible work he did for the cause of peace during times of war. This book offers a thorough look at a very complex man who dealt with a very complex and rapidly changing world beyond anything most of us alive can even begin to comprehend. Highly recommended.

[CanyonATX · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wallace seems like someone the US and the world desperately needs right now; a good, thoughtful, intellectually vigorous person who is dedicated to the common good. This book is a frustrating account of someone of those virtues coming tantalizingly close to leading our nation in the critical WWII and post-war period to being attacked, torn down and discredited by profit and power-seeking, anti-intellectual demagogues. It is encouraging to know that people like Henry Wallace have lived. Hopefully a new leader like him will emerge soon.

[Patrick · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a well-researched and easily accessible documentary. The writing style is entertaining, and the subject, in my opinion, absolutely fascinating. At 540 large, small-typed pages, this was a major investment of time. But I learned a great deal about 20th century US and World politics, and agriculture, and fell in love with Henry A. Wallace.

[Tara · Rating 5 out of 5]

Forgotten history. Important/extraordinary person. Amazingly thorough account- "It was Wallace's fate to be often regarded as a dreamer when actually he was only seeing in his pragmatic realistic way some of the shapes of things to come, and more often than not he was right."

[Danielle Mullan · Rating 5 out of 5]

i guess i finished this book. Did a project on henry wallace for school and became literally obsessed with him. he exemplifies the america that should and could have been in the 20th century. grateful that this book is one of the few places where his life is documented so thoroughly

[Robert A. Neuman · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you want to read an important book about the New Deal and politics in the 1940's including World War II and the Red Scare of the forties and fifties, this is a must book on these subjects based on the fascinating career of Henry Wallace.