Wallace Ashby

Wallace Ashby was an American writer on farm housing and agricultural structures, born in 1890. Records connected with Iowa State show he worked as an instructor in agricultural engineering there in 1913–1914, and later his publications identified him with the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Bureau of Agricultural Engineering.

His best-known work includes Farmhouse Plans, a USDA bulletin first published in the 1930s, which offered practical advice and model plans for farm families. He also wrote on rural housing research and was a coauthor of Modern Farm Buildings (1959), continuing his focus on useful, efficient building design for agricultural life.

Rather than writing fiction or memoir, Ashby wrote to solve everyday problems. His books are remembered for their straightforward, serviceable approach to farmhouse planning and farm construction, making them a window into how experts of his era thought about comfort, economy, and rural living.