Wallace Wattles
American writer (1860–1911)
Wallace Delois Wattles (; 1860 – 7 February 1911) was an American New Thought writer. He remains personally somewhat obscure, but his writing has been widely quoted and remains in print in the New Thought and self-help movements.
Wattles' best known work is a 1910 book called The Science of Getting Rich, in which he explains his spiritual ideology on how to become wealthy.
Life and career
Wattles' daughter, Florence A. Wattles, described her father's life in a "Letter" that was published shortly after his death in the New Thought magazine Nautilus, edited by Elizabeth Towne. The Nautilus had previously carried articles by Wattles in almost every issue, and Towne was also his book publisher. Florence Wattles wrote that her father was born in the U.S. in 1860, received little formal education, and found himself excluded from the world of commerce and wealth.
According to the 1880 US Federal Census, Wallace lived with his parents on a farm in Nunda Township, McHenry County, Illinois, and worked as a farm laborer. His father is listed as a gardener and his mother as "keeping house". Wallace is listed as being born in Illinois while his parents are listed as born in New York. No other siblings are recorded as living with the family.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Wallace Wattles” as american writer (1860–1911). Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the people & ideas register because the source frames it as american writer (1860–1911). Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 24, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q117201. VIAF identifies the subject as 39367305. The Library of Congress control number is n81114180. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1860, 1911, 1910 and 1880.
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This entry incorporates text from “Wallace Wattles” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.