The Iowa President Who Never Was and How History Almost Changed

To date, the only US president to hail from Iowa is Herbert Hoover, who had the unfortunate timing of running the White House during the Great Depression. Whether it's fair or not, history has not been kind to the 31st president. However, the man who succeeded Hoover in the Oval Office chose an Iowan to be his Vice President.

This native Iowan came extremely close to becoming Commander in Chief himself. And history would have been very different had this happened.

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Meet the 33rd Vice President of the US, Henry A. Wallace

Henry Wallace was born in the small Southwest Iowa town of Orient in 1888. In the 1890s, his family moved first to Ames, eventually settling in Des Moines, where they developed a highly influential agricultural newspaper, Wallace's Farmer.

Wallace began attending Iowa State College in 1906, majoring in Animal Husbandry. After graduating, he took up the family business and began writing for Wallace's Farmer, becoming an influential advocate of the American Farmer.

Although he grew up in a Republican family, Wallace was vocally opposed to Herbert Hoover, who won a landslide victory on the GOP ticket in 1928. Then came the Wall Street crash and the Great Depression and Wallace's writing made an even greater impact in the agricultural community.

The Depression had devastating consequences for Iowa farmers, who saw their income fall by two-thirds under the Hoover administration. As a result, Wallace campaigned hard for Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1932, helping him not only win Iowa but go on to a landslide victory himself.

Despite being a nearly lifelong Republican, Roosevelt appointed Wallace as the US Secretary of Agriculture in his first term. Wallace's popularity grew and he eventually was asked to be on the ticket, running for Vice President under Roosevelt in 1940, who was eyeing an unprecedented third term in the White House.

FDR was a big fan of Wallace, and chose him to be his Vice President because of his widespread acclaim in the agricultural community, along with his handling of aid to the United Kingdom at the onset of WWII in 1939.

Wallace had FDR's ear and helped influence the president in many policy decisions. One of the most important was approving funding for a nuclear weapons program after the US was bombed at Pearl Harbor. This eventually became known as the Manhattan Project, which made the atomic bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, effectively ending the war.

FDR wanted Wallace to stay on for another term as Vice President in 1944. However, the democratic party (who thought Wallace to liberal and idealistic) had other ideas. A compromise of sorts was made when Missouri Senator, Harry Truman was chosen at the 1944 Democratic National Convention. FDR was said to be furious over this, as he had no relationship with Truman, and trusted Wallace. But because of the delicate balancing act of running for an unheard of fourth-term, he eventually conceded.

As you probably know, Harry Truman's stint as Vice President didn't last very long (only 82 days) as FDR died in office on April 12, 1945. Harry Truman became president and Henry Wallace became a footnote in history.

What if Wallace had stayed on as Vice President? Would he have approved of the bombs dropped on Japan to end the Second World War? Would he (as Truman did) intervene in Korea? History will never know the answers to these questions, but there can be no doubt that if Wallace had become president, he would have been one of the more pivotal men to hold the office in the twentieth century.

Wallace would launch an unsuccessful third-party candidacy in 1948, alienating many of his previous political allies. He would also go on to be a founder of the Pioneer Hi-Bred Company. Wallace passed away in 1965 from complications of ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis). He was cremated and his ashes lie in Glendale Cemetery in Des Moines.

To see a full-length documentary on Henry A Wallace from PBS, check out the YouTube video link below.