Henry A. Wallace was born in Adair County, Iowa, the son of Henry Cantwell and May Brodhead Wallace. Henry A.'s father served as Secretary of Agriculture under President Warren G. Harding, and his grandfather and father had founded the magazine Wallace's Farmer. After graduation from Iowa State College in 1910, Wallace worked for the family magazine, becoming its editor in 1921. Wallace was also an expert in agricultural science in his own right, experimenting with plant genetics and gaining success in hybridizing corn in order to create higher-yielding strains.

In 1928, Wallace broke with family tradition and the Republican Party because of the party's protectionist tariff policies. Joining the Democratic Party, Wallace helped deliver conservative Iowa to that party in the 1932 Presidential election. That, combined with his knowledge in agriculture, led to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt appointing Wallace as Secretary of Agriculture, a position Wallace held through Roosevelt's first two terms. Wallace formulated and administered the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933, part of the New Deal legislation that was designed to stabilize farm prices, conserve soil, control production, and otherwise stabilize the farming and agricultural economy of the United States during the Great Depression.

Wallace ran as Roosevelt's Vice President for Roosevelt's third term. In this role during World War II, Wallace served as goodwill ambassador to Latin America and traveled to Siberia and China. He also played a significant role in national economic affairs. Because of party opposition to his vice presidency candidacy for a second term, Wallace did not run as Vice President for Roosevelt's 4th term. Instead he served two years as Secretary of Commerce, resigning in 1946 from President Harry S. Truman's Cabinet because of increasing polarization between Wallace and Truman regarding Truman's hardline Cold War policy with the Soviet Union.

Wallace helped form the Progressive Party and served as its presidential candidate in the 1948 election. His platform included arms reduction, closer cooperation with the Soviet Union, and having the United Nations adminster foreign aid. He received over a million popular votes. In 1950, Wallace resigned from the Progressive Party and returned to private life.

Wallace married Ilo Browne of Indianola, Iowa in 1914. They had three children: Henry, Robert, and Jean. Wallace died in Danbury, Connecticut on November 18, 1965 and his ashes were later interned in Des Moines, Iowa at Glendale Cemetery.

[Information retrieved from "Henry A. Wallace," Encyclopedia Britannica and from "Papers of Henry Agard Wallace Collection Guide," http://www.lib.uiowa.edu/scua/msc/tomsc200/msc177/wallace%20new%20template%20fa.htm.]