Background note
Anthony F.C. Wallace (1923- ) embarked on an anthropological career at a young age as a research assistant to his father, ethnologist and historian Paul
A.W. Wallace in the 1930s. After briefly studying at Lebanon Valley College, Anthony enlisted in the U.S. Army, which assigned
him to the 14th Armored Division. On American soil for a good portion of his enlistment, the division served in the European
Theater and participated in the liberation of the Dachau concentration camp in 1945.
After his discharge, Wallace began a lifelong association with the University of Pennsylvania's anthropology department, of
which he eventually became chair. His initial, somewhat untraditional, choice of undergraduate majors--history and physics--reflected
his desire to combine humanistic studies with scientific and technological approaches to the study of man, but the evolutionary
perspective of James Frazer's The Golden Bough later guided him toward the most interdisciplinary of the social sciences--anthropology. Influenced by his father's work
and his own interest in Indians, Wallace pursued graduate studies of the Delaware and Tuscarora Indians under the guidance
of A. Irving Hallowell, Frank G. Speck, and Loren C. Eiseley, all direct intellectual descendants of Franz Boas. Speck had
studied with Boas at Columbia, where Boas taught both Speck and Hallowell in one seminar. Speck and Eiseley, whom Speck had
taught at Oberlin and brought to Penn, persuaded Hallowell, their former colleague, to return to Penn after a period at Northwestern.
As an heir to the Boasian ethnographic tradition through Speck and Hallowell, Wallace inherited Boas' careful attention to
methodology and his interdisciplinary conception of anthropology as encompassing physical, psychological, linguistic, and
cultural studies. From his father and Speck, he inherited an interest in the rapidly disappearing cultures of the Northeastern
Indians and a personal commitment to his research subjects. Through Hallowell, one of the principal figures in ethnopsychology,
he learned to carefully describe behavior and psychological traits while considering the cognitive and emotional structures
of his subjects. All of these he synthesized to create a unique blend of ethnology and history influenced by the social,
behavioral, and biological sciences, thereby becoming one of the pioneers in the development of ethnohistory as a distinct
field.
At Penn, Wallace earned his BA, MA, and Ph.D. in rapid succession. From men not known to bestow praise lightly, he received
glowing recommendations that described him as a brilliant, yet humble, scholar and one of the best anthropology students with
whom they had ever worked. Weaving Hallowell's psychological perspective into the study of Indian-white relations, his MA
thesis examined the Delaware Indians and their chief Teedyuscung from a psychological, as well as historical, perspective.
The work contained the seeds of Wallace's later work on revitalization movements, contrasting the demoralized eastern Delawares
who accepted the Christian teachings of Moravian colonists with the more powerful western Delawares who developed a revitalized
culture that rejected European influences. Published only a year later, King of the Delawares: Teedyuscung drew the attention of national publications and garnered largely favorable reviews. Francis Jennings, a frequent critic
of Wallace's work, has opined that Wallace allowed theory to influence his presentation of data and that he relied heavily
on psychoanalytic theory and biased historical accounts, perhaps overly so. Yet such tendencies often characterize the work
of young scholars, as Jennings explains, and in the case of Teedyuscung, they do not detract significantly from its value as a work of anthropology. He also points out that Wallace's views toward
the Quakers, quite harsh in Teedyuscung, later softened; in Death and Rebirth of the Seneca (1970), he wrote approvingly of the positive teachings and role models presented by the Quaker missionaries.
For his dissertation, Wallace took his cue from Hallowell, who encouraged his students to use Rorschach tests as a means of
studying personality and culture, and Fenton, who had reviewed Hallowell's work and suggested its applicability to the Iroquois,
and began an ethnopsychological study of the Tuscarora Indians. Wallace hoped to determine the personality type that occurred
most frequently among the Tuscaroras and thereby to study the interaction of personality and culture. Although the modal
personality occurred in only 37 percent of the population and thus did not represent the personality of most Tuscaroras, the
study provided insight into common personality characteristics found among the Tuscaroras.
Indian research continued to occupy most of Wallace's time in the 1950s. In addition to an ongoing study of Seneca history
and culture that he incorporated into several monographs and books, he devoted much of his free time from 1952 through 1959
to research, consulting, and testifying as an expert witness for legal cases before the Indian Claims Commission. Initially
hired by the Joint Efforts Group, led by Felix Cohen, an attorney who initiated reform legislation affecting Indians during
the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration, Wallace worked for several Indian nations from the eastern Iroquois to the western
Sioux. The Justice Department team, headed by Erminie Wheeler Voegelin, included the Marxist anthropologist Harold Hickerson.
Most of the cases dealt with the federal government's legal jurisdiction and/or rights to land (or lack thereof) in various
Indian nations based on sovereignty granted to the nations in treaties of the 18th and 19th centuries.
In the midst of his research for the Indian claims, Wallace became indirectly involved in the notorious Joseph McCarthy hearings
when McCarthy named Walter Lowenfels, the father of Wallace's assistant Michal Lowenfels Kane, as one of the leading Communists
in Philadelphia. Lowenfels, avant garde poet of the 1920s and the editor of the Pennsylvania edition of the Daily Worker,
was the oldest of the "Philadelphia Nine," leaders of the local Communist Party arrested and convicted under the Smith Act
during a five-month federal trial. Despite her father's troubles and the Historical Society of Pennsylvania's refusal to
admit her to their library, Kane continued to work with Wallace.
During this time, he also began nearly twenty years of research on the Seneca Indians that culminated in the publication of
Death and Rebirth of the Seneca (1970), perhaps his best known and most influential work. Originally planned as a biography of the Seneca prophet Handsome
Lake, the project expanded into a detailed study of Seneca society, focusing on the prophet's role in "revitalizing" Seneca
culture following a tumultuous period of social and cultural change in the late 18th century. After a descent into a personal
maelstrom of alcoholism and near-madness that mirrored the turbulence in Seneca society, Handsome Lake underwent a personal
transformation in which he experienced a series of visions and revelations. From these, he syncretized traditional Seneca
religious beliefs with ideas of individual, social, and agricultural reform inspired by Quaker missionaries into a new religion
through which he sought to revitalize his culture much as he had revitalized his personal life.
Wallace noted similarities between the psychological and physiological changes that accompanied religious inspiration such
as Handsome Lake's, psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia, and the personality changes associated with stress, social
and cultural change, and disasters. Bringing an anthropological perspective to the increasingly accepted psychiatric theory
that schizophrenia resulted from a genetic and/or biological predisposition awakened by psychological trauma, Wallace speculated
that schizophrenia had both biological and cultural components, a theory he explored in "The Biocultural Theory of Schizophrenia"
and "Mental Illness, Biology, and Culture."
Drawing from biological and cognitive psychological theories, he hypothesized that perhaps similar symptoms could arise in
any individual undergoing psychological and physiological stress, a theory that developed into the concept of mazeway resynthesis.
He noted that when individuals encounter experiences that challenge the "mazeways" through which they perceive and understand
their worlds, their minds often become overwhelmed by conflict, resulting in cognitive dissonance, a state of psychological
and (often) physiological turmoil. Applying Hans Selye's concept of general adaptation syndrome to the human mind, Wallace
argued that attempting to exist in such discomfort often precipitates physical or mental illness. To resolve such conflicts,
individuals must modify their mazeways to accommodate new, formerly troubling, elements, a process he termed "mazeway resynthesis."
In more extreme cases involving prophets and psychiatric patients, Wallace believed that the altered physiological milieu
resulting from stress engendered not only the process of psychological mazeway resynthesis but also the accompanying visions
or hallucinations.
During this time, Wallace also developed his theory of revitalization movements, which in many ways extrapolates the concept
of mazeway resynthesis to the larger society. He described five typical stages, which roughly correspond to the process of
mazeway resynthesis, but at the social and cultural level. He theorized that revitalization movements, which he defined as
"deliberate, organized, conscious attempts by some or all of the members of a society to construct for themselves a more satisfying
culture." were more likely to occur in societies undergoing rapid and/or devastating social change. Most involved prophets
who had experienced personal declines similar to that of Handsome Lake, which culminated in psychological states resembling
schizophrenia, often accompanied by visions. Following these experiences, the prophets underwent personal transformations,
communicated their visions and new insights to others, and synthesized old and new beliefs into new religions or ways of living
that revitalized their cultures.
The intertwining themes of mazeway resynthesis and revitalization movements recurred throughout much of Wallace's work during
this time, most notably in the first three books in a series of works that perhaps unintentionally fell into trilogies by
subject matter. The first trilogy included Religion: An Anthropological View, Culture and Personality, and Death and Rebirth of the Seneca, all of which focused on the psychological, physiological, and cultural aspects of religion, the interaction of personality
and culture, and the revitalization of individual personalities as well as cultures. In Religion, he eschewed a strictly
critical view of religion in favor of an analytical approach that drew from historical, anthropological, psychological, and
physiological sources. He particularly emphasized the ways in which religion and rituals serve as routes through which people
achieve a sense of purpose and meaning that most people find difficult to achieve through their daily lives and as means of
resolving conflicts that could threaten the existence of their cultures. With the rise of a more scientific and secular society,
he foresaw a concomitant waning of institutionalized religious belief and its replacement with a non-deistic philosophy of
concern for humanity. Religion moves beyond ethnological, historical, theological, and psychological theories and provides a thorough examination of the
psychological and physiological aspects of ritual and religious belief.
Wallace's scientific analyses of religious beliefs and experiences, which disavowed supernatural influences and drew parallels
between religious inspiration and schizophrenia, may not have endeared him to the more religiously inclined, but they did
challenge previously held assumptions with regard to both religion and schizophrenia. Through his examination of the psychological,
physiological, and cultural aspects of religious experiences and schizophrenia, Wallace raised vital questions regarding the
role of religion in society and scientifically explained the ways in which individuals and societies react to change.
Breaking with the earlier cultural anthropological tradition of pure ethnographic description without historical context,
Wallace advocated studies of cultural evolution that emulated the approach of evolutionary biology. In Culture and Personality, a scientific and at times quantitative analysis, he examined cultural evolution, the psychology of culture change, and the
ways in which cultures provide cognitive frames of reference through which their members perceive and interpret events. .
Using the relatively new method of componential analysis, Wallace and other anthropologists such as Floyd Lounsbury and Ward
Goodenough used linguistic analysis, particularly in relation to kinship terminology, to study and describe cultures from
the perspectives of those cultures rather than the perspectives of Western anthropologists.
Wallace's interests in anthropology, cognitive psychology, and biology found a home at the Eastern Pennsylvania Psychiatric
Institute (E.P.P.I.) as the federal government and private foundations increased funding for interdisciplinary research in
the 1950s and 1960s. As a consultant and later Director of Clinical Research at E.P.P.I., Wallace researched physiological,
genetic, social, and cultural aspects of psychiatric disorders, particularly schizophrenia, arctic hysteria (piblokto), and
disorders relating to nutritional deficiencies such as hypoglycemia and hypocalcemia. Applying anthropological concepts of
linguistics and culture to psychiatric research, his work included studies on the terminology of emotions and the relation
of hospital staff consensus to patient disturbance. During this time, Wallace also helped to develop a code of ethics for
research with human subjects, following the lead of the National Institute of Mental Health, which in turn had followed guidelines
established as a result of the Nuremberg War Crimes trials.
Through his affiliation with various committees during the 1960s and 1970s, Wallace continued his interdisciplinary work through
studies of the psychological effects of disasters and the association between television viewing and social behavior. His
influential study Housing and Social Structure, published by the Philadelphia Housing Authority, explored the negative psychological
impact of living in high-rise public housing years before widespread popular criticism of such structures. Wallace also presciently
argued against the popular psychological conception of homosexuality as a mental illness during the 1960s when he served as
a consultant on the National Institute of Mental Health's Task Force on Homosexuality.
Throughout his years of psychiatric and sociological research, Wallace remained rooted in anthropological modes of analysis
while maintaining a strong interdisciplinary perspective. As president of the American Anthropological Association in the
early 1970s, he sought to bring related organizations under its umbrella and to resolve ethical conflicts such as the controversy
sparked by federal efforts to recruit anthropologists for counterinsurgency missions in politically volatile nations such
as Thailand.
Following the 1970 publication of Death and Rebirth, Wallace moved away from American Indian studies for several years and turned to the study of technological and social change
in white America during the 19th century from an anthropological perspective. This served as the theme of his second trilogy
of works, which included Rockdale, The Social Context of Innovation, and St. Clair. Inspired by his rural Delaware County, Pennsylvania surroundings, Wallace began to explore the area's history in local
historical societies and courthouses, where he found a wealth of information on early 19th century textile mills and Delaware
County families. From public records, county histories, and collections of personal papers, he created an evocative portrait
of the Rockdale area, which he combined with an analysis of the development of industrialization into the detailed ethnohistorical
study Rockdale: The Growth of an American Village in the Early Industrial Revolution (1978). Rockdale examined the paternalistic relationship between the evangelical Christian proponents of early industrial capitalism and their
employees, their conflicts with freethinking radicals or "infidels," and the ultimate triumph of Christian capitalism in Delaware
County, a microcosm of the larger American society. Although one might be tempted to assume that the industrialists cynically
dosed their workers with religious opium as a means of subduing incipient labor troubles, Wallace demonstrates through his
careful analysis of their words and actions that the textile mill owners and operators did, for the most part, live exemplary
lives that reflected their belief in hard work and personal salvation.
Shortly after completing Rockdale, Wallace pursued a work that he considered its companion study, one that would study the effects of a less successful model
of industrialization in American society. St. Clair: A Nineteenth Century Coal Town's Experience with a Disaster-Prone Industry (1985) explored how coal operators' disregard of geologists' warnings regarding Pennsylvania coal region geology and their
failure to apply new technological innovations led to inefficient mining techniques, poor mine ventilation, and frequent accidents
and explosions. Despite a thriving economy fueled by the 19th century demand for coal, the Pennsylvania coal region eventually
deteriorated into economic and social disaster, replete with mining accidents, ethnic conflicts, and violence against coal
operators and mine supervisors. Financially troubled small coal operators often blamed accidents not on their own failures
but on Irish laborers bent on retribution against the mining companies. This developed into the true yet semi-legendary story
of the Molly Maguires, whose crimes, trials, and executions became the episodes for which the coal region is perhaps best
known. In St. Clair, Wallace not only analyzed the region's most prominent coal operators and the economists and industrialists who influenced
them, but also painted a vivid portrait of life in the coal towns and mine patches. Although St. Clair lacks some of the warmth and familiarity that characterizes Rockdale, perhaps because of his relative distance from its subject, as Francis Jennings has noted, Wallace's work remains one of
the few detailed and well-researched accounts of Pennsylvania coal region history.
Between these two massive studies, Wallace sandwiched a shorter study, The Social Context of Innovation (1982), which incorporated
his research on the textile industry with his then in-progress study of the coal region. In Social Context, he described the interrelationship of technology and culture during the Industrial Revolution and the ways in which technological
innovation arose from as well as resulted in social change, contrasting the Darby family's successful model of industrialization
in Coalbrookdale, England with the unsuccessful examples found in Pennsylvania's coal region.
The third trilogy of works consisted of Prelude to Disaster: The Black Hawk War of 1832 (1990) The Long Bitter Trail: Andrew Jackson and the Indians (1993) and Thomas Jefferson and the Indians: The Tragic Fate of the First Americans (1999), all of which focus on Indian-white relations, and particularly government policy toward the Indians. With these
works, Wallace resumed his study of American Indians but with an emphasis on their relations with the United States government
and with a more pessimistic flavor than his earlier Indian research. Prelude to Disaster and The Long Bitter Trail developed out of Wallace's research for Indian claims cases and examined, respectively, the tragedies of the Black Hawk War
and Andrew Jackson's Indian removal policies. Originally published as the introduction to Ellen Whitney's compilation Introduction to the Black Hawk War, 1831-1832, this brief (51-page) work traces the course of Indian-white relations in Illinois that culminated in the Black Hawk War.
The Long Bitter Trail: Andrew Jackson and the Indians details the misguided and often racist policies that led the federal government to drive the southeastern Indians from their
land to reservations in Oklahoma. Thomas Jefferson and the Indians: The Tragic Fate of the First Americans, his most recent work, explores Jefferson's often-conflicted relationship with the American Indian. Wallace believes that
Jefferson viewed the Indians as a noble yet doomed race, whose history and language he sought to preserve while pursuing policies
that ultimately would destroy their way of life.
Since his 1987 retirement, Wallace has remained an active and influential scholar, as evidenced by the three works described
above and by his recent talks on the benefits and limitations of local history, which incorporate materials he used for his
studies of Rockdale and St. Clair.
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.
Scope and content
The Wallace Family Collection documents the professional and personal lives of Anthony F.C. Wallace, anthropologist and ethnohistorian
and his father, ethnologist, historian, and folklorist Paul A.W. Wallace. The collection includes correspondence to and from
20th century anthropologists, ethnologists, historians, linguists, and psychiatrists and provides a wealth of resources for
the study of technological and social change, American Indians, culture and personality, revitalization movements, the anthropological
study of religion, and the cultural and biological bases of behavior.
Anthony Wallace's papers (1920-2000) comprise the bulk of the collection. In addition to Wallace's correspondence, research
notes, and drafts, the collection includes Wallace family correspondence and photographs, as well as Wallace's writings from
childhood through recent years.
Paul Wallace's papers (1920-1967), while representing a much smaller portion of the collection, provide rich source materials
for the study of northeastern American Indians. The collection includes extensive correspondence with fellow scholars and
Indian consultants, interviews with Indians of the Six Nations Reserve in Canada, and notes and photographs collected during
his fieldwork among the Indians of New York State, Pennsylvania, and Canada.
Arrangement
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Subcollection I. Anthony F. C. Wallace Papers
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1920-2000 |
103.5 linear feet |
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Subcollection II. Paul A. W. Wallace Papers
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1895-1940 |
6.5 linear feet |
Administrative information
Restrictions
See individual subcollections.
Provenance
Gift of Anthony F.C. Wallace, 1988 , 1999-2000 and Presented by David H. Wallace, 1967.
Preferred citation
Cite as: Wallace Family Papers, American Philosophical Society.
Processing information
Catalogued by Valerie Anne Lutz, 2003.
Additional information
Separated material
Separation notices in folders provide locations (oversize box, printed materials, audio collections) of materials removed
from original arrangement. A list of these items appears as an appendix.
Related material
The APS holds nearly all of the published works of Paul Wallace and Anthony Wallace, listed in Appendix A, as well as papers
and publications of the Wallace's colleagues A. Irving Hallowell, Frank G. Speck, William N. Fenton, Floyd Lounsbury, and
Merle H. Deardorff.
The following repositories house additional Paul Wallace materials:
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Alpine Club of Canada, Vancouver, British Columbia: 2 boxes of books and manuscript material including diaries, notes of interviews,
photographs, and other unpublished material relating to Alpine Club activities, 1912-1913
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Glenbow Alberta Institute, Archives Department, Calgary: Photographs, printed material, and a few original letters relating
to the University of Alberta and western Canada, and machine copies of Paul Wallace's letters and diaries relating to his
years in British Columbia and Alberta, 1913, 1915-16, 1919-1922.
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Lebanon Valley College, Annville, Pennsylvania: The bulk of Paul Wallace's library, over 3,500 volumes; research notes for
his LVC, A Centennial History, and personal correspondence of Paul and Dorothy E. Clarke Wallace and related papers, 1925-1967,
covering their years in Annville and New Cumberland.
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Pennsylvania State University, University Park: Over 250 letters and related material concerning Edith J. Lyttleton (G.B.
Lancaster), New Zealand, novelist and Paul Wallace's literary mentor.
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Pennsylvania State Archives, Harrisburg: Paul A.W. Wallace Papers (1931-1967), Manuscript Group 192
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United Church of Canada/Victoria University Archives, Toronto: Letters, scrapbooks, photographs, and other material relating
to the Wallace family in Canada, ca. 1829-1940; correspondence, diaries, and writings of Paul Wallace, ca. 1900-1925, and
letters of Dorothy E. Clarke Wallace, 1918-1925.
References
Grumet, Robert, "An Interview with Anthony F.C. Wallace." Ethnohistory 42 (1995)
Jennings, Francis, "Anthony F.C. Wallace: An Ethnohistorical Pioneer." Ethnohistory 37 (1990): 438-444
Wallace, David H., compiler. "Bibliography of Paul A.W. Wallace," September 1996
Wallace, Anthony F.C. "Alfred Irving Hallowell, 1892-1974: A Biographical Memoir." Biographical Memoirs, National Academy of Sciences (Washington, D.C.: National Academy of Sciences), 1980
Wallace, Anthony F.C. "Basic Studies, Applied Projects, and Eventual Implementation: A Case History of Biological and Cultural
Research in Mental Health." In George D. Spindler, ed., The Making of Psychological Anthropology.
Wallace, Anthony F.C. "The Biocultural Theory of Schizophrenia." International Record of Medicine, Vol. 173 No. 11, November, 1960, 700-714
Wallace, Anthony F.C. "The Career of William N. Fenton and the Development of Iroquoian Studies." In Michael K. Foster, Jack
Campisi, and Marianne Mithun, et. al.,
Extending the Rafters. Interdisciplinary Approaches to Iroquoian Studies (Albany: State University of New York Press), 1984
Wallace, Anthony F.C. Culture and Personality (N.Y.: Random House, 1961).
Wallace, Anthony F.C. "Mazeway Resynthesis: A Biocultural Theory of Religious Inspiration." Transactions of the New York Academy of Sciences, Ser. II, Volume 18, No. 7, 626-638
Wallace, Anthony F.C., "Mental Illness, Biology, and Culture." In Francis L.K. Hsu, Psychological Anthropology (Cambridge: Schenkman Publishing Company), 1972
Wallace, Anthony F.C., "Narrative account of career." March, 1981
Wallace, Anthony F.C. Religion: An Anthropological View (New York: Random House), 1966
Wallace, Anthony F.C. "Religious Revitalization: A Function of Religion in Human History and Evolution." Paper presented
at the 8th Institute on Religion in an Age of Science at Star Island, off Portsmouth, N.H., 26 July 1961
Wallace, David H., compiler. "Bibliography of Paul A.W. Wallace," September 1996