For Henry A. Wallace, a 1910 graduate of Iowa State College, earning his bachelor’s of science degree in animal husbandry was just the beginning of a future that found him deep in politics and ahead of his time.

Wallace, former U.S. Secretary of Agriculture and vice president, referred to himself as a “Progressive Republican” in an Iowa State Student alumni survey.

After his graduation from Iowa State, Wallace went back to Des Moines, where he served as associate editor at Wallace’s Farmer, the family business and leading agricultural magazine.

Wallace earned his master’s degree in animal husbandry in 1920, and four years later, he was promoted to editor at Wallace’s Farmer. During this time, Wallace had various opportunities to visit Washington, D.C., and view the political scene.

Increasing agricultural surpluses created unrest among the nation’s farmers, and politicians disagreed on how to solve the problem. Many blamed the impending crisis on scientific technology.

However, Wallace, who developed the first single-cross strain of hybrid corn in 1919, which led him to found Pioneer Hybrid Seed Company, said technology was not the problem.

“For science and invention, you will say, have not only made it possible for us to produce enough to go round; they have made it possible for us to pile up towering surpluses, which in turn seem capable of bringing our whole economic system crashing down on our ears,” Wallace said during a 1933 NBC national radio broadcast.

“I am not one to ask for less efficiency…. But I want the efficiency to be controlled in such a way that it does more good than harm,” he said.

Wallace’s idea of reducing the intensity of production fits within the modern concept of sustainable agriculture.

“When we learn how to develop our human relations as we have developed our agricultural productive capacity, … then we will invent even newer techniques and build the new institutions needed in a hungry world threatened with self-destruction,” Wallace said in a 1961 speech to the Graduate Society of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Upon his death on Nov. 18, 1965, Vice President Hubert Humphrey said “he was a great public servant and one of the greatest friends American agriculture has had.”

Now, 34 years after his death, the ISU College of Agriculture is recognizing Wallace’s achievements.

Starting the spring 2000 semester, Lorna Michael Butler, Extension anthropologist and professor of rural sociology at Washington State University at Puyallup, will become ISU’s first-ever Henry A. Wallace Chair for Sustainable Agriculture.

With the creation of the chair, Wallace will forever be remembered as a significant part of ISU history.

“Wallace was a real promoter of sustainable agriculture concepts,” said David Topel, dean of the College of Agriculture. “This is a nice tribute to him.”

—Information about Wallace came from the University Archives.