American agricultural writer and publicist Henry Wallace was born to a Scotch-Irish farm family in West Newton, Pennsylvania. After graduating from Jefferson College in Pennsylvania in 1859, Wallace taught briefly at Columbia College in Kentucky. He then went on to study theology at Allegheny Seminary in Pennsylvania and at Monmouth College in Illinois, and served as a Union chaplain in the Civil War. After the war he was a minister in Illinois and Iowa until forced to retire because of health reasons. After his retirement from the ministry, Wallace's career took a new turn into writing about agriculture. Earlier in his life he had been interested in journalism and had written a few… articles advocating the abolition of slavery, temperance, and other reforms. Writing now became the central focus of his life, and his interests shifted back to his roots in farming. In 1877 he moved his family to Winterset, Iowa, where he bought a farm and became involved in editorial work on local farm papers. His journalistic interest and success eventually led to part ownership of the Iowa Homestead. In 1895 he and his two sons founded a new agrarian newspaper known as Wallaces' Farmer. During the turbulent years of the Populist movement and depressed farm prices, Wallaces' Farmer gave voice to farmers' deep discontents. It advocated regulating railroad rates to end rebates and other pricing practices that discriminated against small farmers. It urged expanded training and education in state agricultural colleges. During its existence from 1895 to 1916, Wallaces' Farmer became a vital source of information and aid for the nation's farmers and a leading organ for their interests. Interestingly, Wallace's family carried on this heritage. One of Wallace's sons, Henry Cantrell Wallace, served as secretary of agriculture in the 1920s. His grandson, Henry Agard Wallace, studied scientific agronomy at Iowa State University, pursuing plant research and agricultural economics. Young Wallace also developed a new species of hybrid corn and calculated detailed studies of midwestern weather cycles and their effects on crops. Fittingly enough, Henry Agard Wallace also served in the same cabinet post as his father, appointed secretary of agriculture by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1930s. In this position, he was instrumental in implementing the New Deal strategy of paying farmers to cut back on crop production. As Roosevelt's vice-presidential running mate in 1940, Henry Agard Wallace's strength in farm states contributed significantly to Roosevelt's reelection.