Lila Acheson Wallace and DeWitt Wallace received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Nixon for their philanthropic and publishing legacy.
On September 17, 1972, Lila Acheson Wallace, together with her husband DeWitt Wallace, was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor in the United States, by President Richard Nixon. The award recognized the couple's transformative impact through Reader's Digest as well as their extraordinary philanthropic contributions to the arts, education, and public health.
By 1972, the Wallaces had built Reader's Digest into one of the most widely read magazines in the world, and had channeled much of their vast fortune into charitable causes through vehicles such as the Lila Wallace–Reader's Digest Fund. Their generosity supported major cultural institutions, including significant funding for the Metropolitan Museum of Art and numerous performing arts organizations, as well as initiatives supporting public broadcasting and libraries.
Being jointly honored with her husband underscored the recognized partnership between the two as co-founders and co-stewards of both their publishing empire and their philanthropic legacy. The Medal of Freedom ceremony marked a pinnacle of public recognition for a life's work that had begun decades earlier in a modest Greenwich Village basement office, reflecting how far the Wallaces' influence had extended into American cultural and civic life by the early 1970s.