DeWitt Wallace (born William Roy DeWitt Wallace), was an American magazine publisher. Wallace co-founded Reader's Digest with his wife Lila Bell Wallace, publishing the first issue in 1922. Born in St. Paul, Minnesota, where his father was on the faculty (and later president) of Macalester College, he attended Mount Harmon School as a youth. Wallace attended college at Macalester from 1907 to 1909 and transferred to the University of California, Berkeley for two years. He returned to St. Paul in 1912 and was hired by a publishing firm specializing in farming literature. 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.

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By Jillian Apel T’18

DeWitt Wallace loved to take notes. Every night after coming home from his tedious bank job in 1909, he would flip through magazines, jotting down anything he found interesting or important on small index cards.  Compiling the cards was a therapeutic way to absorb information.

His quirky habit hinted at the revolution he would lead in journalism, aggregating articles to save readers time. The notecards foreshadowed the editorial vision of Reader’s Digest, a publishing empire built on the idea of finding the best content.

Reader’s Digest was ahead of its time. Wallace’s unique capsulized approach was a harbinger of the aggregation of the digital age and the democratization of magazines to a wider audience. Aggregators ranging from the Drudge Report to the Politico Playbook have their roots in Reader’s Digest.

From the start, Wallace devised a formula for finding the right content for his broad audience.  He would ask himself – and later have his writers and editors do the same– three simple questions when looking for content:

1. Is it quo
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   Just Who Was DeWitt Wallace, Anyway? by Raymond PunJanuary 16, 2013

   DeWitt Wallace Periodicals Reading Room

   In the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building on 42nd Street and Fifth Avenue, there is a reading room with high wooden carved ceiling called the DeWitt Wallace Periodical Reading Room. You may have seen the historical room decorated with large murals reflecting major publishers of periodicals, newspapers and books at the turn of the century by Richard Haas, an American muralist known for his architectural murals.

   The wifi'ed room also provides access to some of the most popular and current printed newspapers and magazines from U.S. and abroad including The Economist, The New Yorker, Vogue, Le Monde, and our zine collection. All for FREE to read!

   If you work or live in vicinity of the Library, you can escape from the midtown madness by reading and lounging in one of the Library's magnificent reading rooms. The reading room is currently funded by the Wallace Foundation devoted to the collection of periodicals. There are two reasons why I like this room aside fro