Scope and Content Note
The papers of Henry Agard Wallace (1888-1965) span the years 1931-1945, with the bulk of the collection dated 1941-1945, while he was vice president. The material is organized in seven series: General Correspondence , Political File , Subject File , Military Appointments File , Scrapbooks , Newspaper Clippings , and Classified . The collection contains information pertaining to public reaction to Wallace and insight on President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal.
The General Correspondence series contains little personal material, with most of the correspondence consisting of form replies and staff answers from the vice president's office. The series is significant particularly as it reflects on the quantity of constituent mail received by Wallace. Wallace's programs aroused strong public feelings, and the views of his correspondents were quite diverse. Their letters reflect American social and political thinking in the 1940s.
Correspondence in the Political File relates to the 1944 presidential election, the Democratic Party convention in Chicago, and the response Wallace generated from the gathering. His speech seconding the renomination of Roosevelt, entitled "Century of the Common Man," evoked considerable controversy.
Wallace's trip to South America in 1943, treated in the Subject File , also elicited a strong response. Along with routine telegrams and protocol instructions, letters from across the social spectrum of Latin America, written primarily in Spanish, reflected the reaction to Wallace's messages of goodwill delivered in Spanish.
Scrapbooks and newspaper clippings spanning the years 1934-1944 contain photographs and magazine and newspaper articles about Wallace and his family, activities, and interests. The Military Appointments File includes correspondence and records pertaining to the vice president's appointments to the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, and the United States Military Academy in West Point, New York.