DeWitt Wallace

Wallace was born in Saint Paul, Minnesota, on November 12, 1889. His father was on the faculty (and later president) of Macalester College. He attended Mount Hermon School as a youth (now Northfield Mount Hermon School). Wallace attended college at Macalester from 1907 to 1909 and transferred to the University of California, Berkeley for two years.

In 1912, Wallace returned to St. Paul, where he was hired by a publishing firm specializing in farming literature.

During World War I, Wallace enlisted in the United States Army and was wounded. He spent four months in a French hospital recovering from his injuries, passing the time by reading American magazines.

Returning to the U.S., Wallace spent every day of the next six months at the Minneapolis Public Library researching and condensing magazine articles. He wanted to create a magazine with articles on a wide variety of subjects, abridged so that each could be easily read. Wallace showed his sample magazine to Lila Bell Acheson, sister of an old college friend, Barclay Acheson, who responded enthusiastically. He proposed to her and on October 15, 1921, they were married.

The Wallaces decided to publish the magazine themselves and market it by direct mail. The first issue appeared on February 5, 1922. Reader's Digest soon became one of the most widely circulated periodicals in the world. Wallace was a supporter of the Republican Party with strong anti-communist views, and the magazine reflected these beliefs.

Wallace and his wife were strong supporters of Richard Nixon's presidential bid in the 1968 presidential election, giving Nixon cash donations and allowing Nixon to write articles for the Digest.

Wallace was a noted philanthropist, donating much of his massive fortune to his alma mater Macalester College. The Wallaces also established a number of foundations that are now consolidated as The Wallace Foundation, which supports education, youth development and the arts. There is a dormitory with his name on the Northfield Mount Hermon campus. He funded the DeWitt Wallace Decorative Arts Museum, opened in 1985 at Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia.