Charles and Florence Wallace academic realia

Charles F. Wallace (1885-1964) was born in Kansas City, Missouri on July 1, 1885 to Charles and Nellie (née Galehouse) Wallace. After briefly attending Wooster College in Ohio and the University of Michigan, Wallace moved to New York City in 1908. He met business partner Martin Tiernan while working at the Gerard Ozone Processing Company, when the two roomed together at a local YMCA. In 1911, they formed the Wallace and Tiernan Company. Housed in a single-room shop in New York City, the company’s research focused on sanitation products. For the first couple of years, Wallace worked in the shop developing new products, while Tiernan worked several outside jobs to raise funds for the company. The team’s first breakthrough came in 1913, when the Jersey City Water Supply asked them to install their newly invented “chlorinator” to help sanitize that local watershed.

Wallace married Florence Murray, a graduate of the Rochester Institute of Technology’s Domestic Science Department, and the couple had three daughters. During his lifetime, Wallace was granted over 80 patents for his inventions. The Wallaces were enthusiastic philanthropists. In 1954, Mr. Wallace established the Florence Murray Scholarship Fund in honor of his wife. The Wallaces were major financial supporters of RIT, and the RIT Library is named in honor of their support for the Institute.