James Hazen Hyde

James Hazen Hyde was the son of Henry Baldwin Hyde, the founder of The Equitable Life Assurance Society of the United States. James Hazen Hyde was twenty-three in 1899 when he inherited the majority shares in the billion-dollar Equitable Life Assurance Society. Five years later, at the pinnacle of social and financial success, efforts to remove him from The Equitable set in motion the first great Wall Street scandal of the 20th century, which resulted in his resignation from The Equitable and relocation to France.