Wallace, Paul A.W.

Paul A. W. Wallace was a professor of English, with interests in Pennsylvania history.

Anthropologist, historian, and folklorist Paul A.W. Wallace (1894-1967) drew national recognition in the 1940s and 1950s for his pioneering work on eighteenth century Indian-white relations. A contemporary and colleague of Alfred Irving Hallowell, Wallace bridged the generations of Frank G. Speck and William N. Fenton and counted among his colleagues some of the 20th century's most renowned ethnologists and historians.

An English professor at Lebanon Valley College in Pennsylvania, where he eventually became chair and spent most of his career, Wallace's interests in folklore and ethnology developed into studies of the Pennsylvania Dutch and the Indians of Pennsylvania, New York State, and Canada. The Toronto-born Wallace shared Speck's dedication to and concern for the Indians, whom he considered friends as well as ethnographic subjects. Through his extensive ethnographic fieldwork among the Iroquois and Huron tribes at the Six Nations Reserve in Brantford, Ontario and in other communities in Canada and Western New York state, Wallace forged bonds of friendship with many Indians.

One of these friendships led to Wallace's adoption by the Mohawk nation. Shortly after the publication of White Roots of Peace (Philadelphia, 1946), Ray Fadden (Aren Akweks) wrote to Wallace on behalf of the Akwesasne Mohawk Counselor Organization and expressed his appreciation of the book, which he felt created "respect for the Indian, not only in the white readers but also among the Indian people." Over the next three years, Wallace and Fadden maintained a steady and increasingly friendly correspondence. When the Mohawks adopted Wallace into their nation on July 15, 1949, giving him the name Tor-ri-wa-wa-kon ("holding a message."), Fadden's wife Christine (Ska-won-ate) served as Wallace's sponsor. Wallace and Fadden's friendship lasted over twenty years until Wallace's death in 1967.

Through works such as Conrad Weiser, 1696-1760, Friend of Colonist and Mohawk (Philadelphia, 1945); The White Roots of Peace; The Muhlenbergs of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia, 1950); Indian Paths of Pennsylvania (Harrisburg, 1952 and subsequent editions); Thirty Thousand Miles with John Heckewelder (Pittsburgh, 1958); and Indians in Pennsylvania (Harrisburg, 1961), Wallace achieved national recognition in his second career as an historian. He served as editor of Pennsylvania History and as consultant to the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission (PHMC) from 1951-1957, when the PHMC hired him as a staff historian, a position he held until 1965.