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History's Headlines: High life insurance
Thought this was interesting. Allentown is only an hour away from me.
Apparently, the reason for Ramsay’s move to Millionaires Row was his new job. For several years Ramsay had been in the small insurance partnership of Ramsay and Moore. But in 1901 he had been made manager of the Equitable Life Assurance Society for the Lehigh Valley, with spacious office space in three rooms in the first floor of the B & B building at the south east corner of 6th and Hamilton. Before the decade was out, he and Cashier C. W. DeRose would move into even better “digs” in the newly opened Commonwealth Building, the city’s first skyscraper at 5th and Hamilton.
The largest life insurance company in the United States with its assets as of 1903 at $381,226,036, the Equitable was widely respected. Its president was longtime partner James P. Alexander. Its vice president was James Hazen Hyde, son of the founder, Henry V. Hyde. The elder Hyde had begun the company in 1859. Feeling that other insurance companies lacked imagination, he set out to advertise his company, something that other insurance companies thought of as vulgar. Hyde’s idea took off. “The company,” writes historian Walter Lord, "became more than just a business, it was a hobby, a monument, a cherished possession.”
Thought this was interesting. Allentown is only an hour away from me.
Apparently, the reason for Ramsay’s move to Millionaires Row was his new job. For several years Ramsay had been in the small insurance partnership of Ramsay and Moore. But in 1901 he had been made manager of the Equitable Life Assurance Society for the Lehigh Valley, with spacious office space in three rooms in the first floor of the B & B building at the south east corner of 6th and Hamilton. Before the decade was out, he and Cashier C. W. DeRose would move into even better “digs” in the newly opened Commonwealth Building, the city’s first skyscraper at 5th and Hamilton.
The largest life insurance company in the United States with its assets as of 1903 at $381,226,036, the Equitable was widely respected. Its president was longtime partner James P. Alexander. Its vice president was James Hazen Hyde, son of the founder, Henry V. Hyde. The elder Hyde had begun the company in 1859. Feeling that other insurance companies lacked imagination, he set out to advertise his company, something that other insurance companies thought of as vulgar. Hyde’s idea took off. “The company,” writes historian Walter Lord, "became more than just a business, it was a hobby, a monument, a cherished possession.”
