Alfred Wallace Meyer, Chicago advertising executive, was born in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. He was a reporter and city editor for the Oshkosh Northwestern from 1908-1912. In 1916 he received his A.B. degree from the University of Wisconsin, School of Journalism, and was employed in Chicago as a copywriter by the J. Walter Thompson advertising company. In 1917-1918 he served as advertising manager for the H. W. Gossard Company and from 1918-1919 was a member of the Signal Corps of the U. S. Army. Dropping his first name, he has been known in the advertising profession simply as Wallace Meyer for many years.
From 1919-1925 he was copywriter and account manager for the Charles F. W. Nichols Company, and in 1925 he joined the Chicago advertising firm of Reincke-Ellis-Younggreen and Finn. The firm's name was shortened to Reincke, Meyer and Finn in 1944, when Wallace Meyer became its president.
