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8 unusual facts about James Waddel Alexander


AXA Equitable Life Insurance Company

James Waddell Alexander, the son of James Waddel Alexander, was the company president at the time of the Hyde costume ball scandal in 1905, in which James Hazen Hyde, the son of the founder and a vice president of the company, was falsely accused through a media smear campaign initiated by Alexander and board directors E. H. Harriman, Henry Clay Frick, J.P. Morgan of charging a fabulous $200,000 costume ball to the company.

Henry Baldwin Hyde

Falsely accused through a media smear campaign initiated by board directors E. H. Harriman, Henry Clay Frick, J.P. Morgan, and company President James Waddel Alexander of charging the $200,000 party to his company, Hyde soon found himself drawn into a maelstrom of allegations of his corporate malfeasance.

J. W. Alexander

James Waddel Alexander (1804–1859), American Presbyterian minister and author

James Waddel Alexander

Alexander became a patron of Henry Baldwin Hyde, who founded the Equitable Life Assurance Society in 1859.

William C. Alexander (1848-1937), cofounder of Pi Kappa Alpha and secretary of the Equitable Life Assurance Society

His son, James Waddell Alexander, would also later serve as president of the company, while another son, William C. Alexander, served as company secretary.

His younger brothers included William Cowper Alexander (1806-1874), president of the New Jersey State Senate and first president of the Equitable Life Assurance Society, and Joseph Addison Alexander (1809-1860), a biblical scholar.

Alexander's English translation of the hymn "O Sacred Head, Now Wounded," became the most widely used version in 19th and 20th century hymnals.


William Cowper Alexander

His brother, Presbyterian minister James Waddel Alexander, had become the patron of Equitable founder Henry Baldwin Hyde, and many of the company's original directors were members of Rev. Alexander's Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church.


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