DeWitt Wallace (November 12, 1889 – March 30, 1981, also known as William Roy) was a United States magazine publisher. He co-founded Reader's Digest with his wife Lila Wallace and published the first issue in 1922. November 12 is the 316th day of the year (317th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 49 days remaining. ... 1889 was a common year starting on Tuesday (see link for calendar). ... March 30 is the 89th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (90th in Leap years). ... 1981 is a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... A collection of magazines A magazine is a periodical publication containing a variety of articles on various subjects. ... A publisher is a person or entity which engages in the act of publishing. ... The cover of the May 2004 issue of Readers Digest. ... Lila Bell Wallace (neé Acheson) (1890–1984) was a United States magazine publisher. ... 1922 was a common year starting on Sunday (see link for calendar). ...

Born in St. Paul, Minnesota, where his father was on the faculty (and later president) of Macalester College, he attended Mount Hermon School as a youth (now Northfield Mount Hermon). Wallace went to college at Macalester from 1907 to 1909 but transferred to the University of California at Berkeley for two years. He returned to St. Paul in 1912 and was hired by a publishing firm specializing in farming literature. State capitol building in Saint Paul Saint Paul is the capital and second-largest city of the state of Minnesota in the United States of America. ... Macalester College is a privately supported coeducational liberal arts college in Saint Paul, Minnesota. ... Northfield Mount Hermon Northfield Mount Hermon (NMH) is a ninth-twelfth grade private college-preparatory high school (secondary school) located in western Massachusetts, U.S.A. Its Northfield campus is located in Northfield, Massachusetts, and its Mount Hermon campus is located in nearby Gill, Massachusetts. ... 1907 was a common year starting on Tuesday (see link for calendar). ... 1909 was a common year starting on Friday (see link for calendar). ... The University of California, Berkeley (also known as Cal, UC Berkeley, UCB, or simply Berkeley) is a prestigious, public, coeducational university situated in the foothills of Berkeley, California to the east of San Francisco Bay, overlooking the Golden Gate and its bridge. ... 1912 is a leap year starting on Monday. ... Farming, ploughing rice paddy, in Indonesia Agriculture is the process of producing food, feed, fiber and other desired products by cultivation of certain plants and the raising of domesticated animals (livestock). ...

During World War I, Wallace enlisted in the U.S. Army and was wounded in the Battle of Verdun. He spent four months in a French hospital, recovering from his injuries and passing the time by reading American magazines. World War I was primarily a European conflict with many facets: immense human sacrifice, stalemate trench warfare, and the use of new, devastating weapons - tanks, aircraft, machineguns, and poison gas. ... The Army is the branch of the United States armed forces which has primary responsibility for land-based military operations. ... They shall not pass — Henri Philippe Pétain The Battle of Verdun was a major battle of the Western Front in World War I. The battle was fought between the German and French armies between February 21 and 19 December 1916 around Verdun in northeast France. ... A physician visiting the sick in a hospital. ...

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, 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 in February 1922, and Reader's Digest soon became one of the most widely circulated periodicals in the world. The Minneapolis Public Library (MPL) is a library system serving the residents of Minneapolis, Minnesota. ... October 15 is the 288th day of the year (289th in Leap years). ... 1921 was a common year starting on Saturday (see link for calendar). ... 1922 was a common year starting on Sunday (see link for calendar). ...