Having started reading a biography of Henry Agard Wallace out of sheer curiosity, I was surprised to find his political biography to be eerily relevant to our current political environment. Wallace was a scientific breeder and farmer whose family owned a popular Iowa farmer’s newspaper. He wrote for and edited the paper and later founded the Pioneer Hy-Bred corporation, which sold hybrid corn, chickens and other produce, which became a multi-billion dollar concern (an entrepreneurial capitalist irony that will become richer as the story proceeds). He was originally a Republican, like his father, Henry C. Wallace, who served as Secretary of Agriculture under Harding. The inaction of the Republicans in the face of the terrible suffering of the Great Depression drove Henry A. Wallace into the arms of more the pragmatic and experimental New Dealers within the Democratic Party.

If you are like most people, the name Henry Wallace might be familiar, but you aren’t sure exactly why. Henry Wallace became Secretary of Agriculture in the first two Roosevelt Administrations, where he presided over some of the largest and most influential New Deal programs. In 1940, Wallace joined the Presidential ticket to shore up Roosevelt’s left wing. As Vice President, Wallace was unusually active in war planning and setting policy, and headed the Economic Warfare Board. Heading into the 1944 Presidential season, Roosevelt decided to run for a fourth term, despite his failing health, and Wallace was his heir apparent, polling the far beyond any other contender for the Presidency in 1948. But due to political maneuvering still not fully understood, but clearly approved of by the ailing Roosevelt, Wallace was dumped from the ticket and Truman was chosen instead.