After the Ball: Gilded Age Secrets, Boardroom Betrayals, and the Party That Ignited the Great Wall Street Scandal of 1905

by Patricia Beard

"After the Ball is that rare true story that reads like an epic novel, a sweeping chronicle of an era, and an intimate account of the hope and betrayal of a son whose father gave him everything -- except the training to find his way in territory ruled by the rapacious. James Hazen Hyde was twenty-three in 1899 when he inherited the majority shares in the billion-dollar Equitable Life Assurance Society. Only five years later, he fell from grace in a Wall Street scandal that obsessed the nation and commanded 115 front-page articles in the "New York Times.

Hyde was intelligent, cultured, and ambitious, but he was no match for an older generation that had mapped the backstreets of high finance. Vying to control the Equitable's vast investment pool, the most famous financiers and industrialists of the era -- among them E. H. Harriman, Henry Clay Frick, and J. P. Morgan -- put Hyde on forty-eight boards and included him in deals that shook Wall Street. And then, at the pinnacle of social success, he made a fatal miscalculation.

On the last night of January 1905, James Hyde held a fabulously flamboyant, eighteenth-century, Versailles-themed costume ball. His enemies used the party as the hook to hang him on, claiming that he was too frivolous to run a company dedicated to protecting widows and orphans; and spread the rumor that he had spent two hundred thousand dollars of Equitable money on a night's entertainment. By the time a government investigation established that Hyde had paid the bills himself, his reputation was ruined.

The bitter campaign to wrest control of the Equitable and its vast investment capacity from Hyde followed on the heels of the ball. As the fightescalated, clandestine alliances between insurers and Wall Street burst to the surface, exposing techniques that are the stuff of twenty-first-century scandals: self-dealing, insider trading, accounting malpractice, and corporate funding of private pleasures.

"After the Ball tells a tale that riveted millions of Americans a century ago. Its themes are as fresh today as they were in 1905: greed and chicanery, the flawed love between fathers and sons, and contradictory American attitudes about wealth -- all unfolding against a setting of magnificence, excess, and corrupting glamour.

Genres: History, Biography, Nonfiction, Economics, Business

416 pages, Hardcover

First published August 1, 2003

Reviews

[Jeslyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent history on the corruption involving the Big Three life insurance companies at the dawn of the 20th century, though Equitable is the focus of this book. Beard did a terrific job of organizing her information into shorter chapters that helped me stay on track (no simple feat, with all of the blind trusts, circuitous business transactions, and tangled affiliations amongst the MANY players). Perhaps the best move, Beard shifts gears about midway to write about the ball that touched off the firestorm - the recklessly expensive fluff of these parties to show off one's financial and social power was mind-boggling, and also hilarious at times. Two incidents, one involving imported butterflies and the other decorative swans, had me laughing out loud at the humbling of the hosts. The Gilded Age really was off the charts - in both the social scene and the financial dealings. This book also reads as very contemporary, of course - this scandal wouldn't look dated at all on the front page of any newspaper today. Kudos to Ms. Beard for her excellent research and writing here.

[Melissa · Rating 3 out of 5]

When I picked this book for book club, I was really excited about it--what a great way to talk about past and present! And it started off really good--all the juicy details of the power people at the turn of the last century. And then it just sorta fizzled. I think part of my issue is I just don't know that much about economics and buisness. Part of me wishes the Planet Money team could just explain the Equitable Life Insurance thing.
But it's still fascinating and well written. I just felt like some stuff went over my head. And the similiarities between today and then are pretty amazing.
Recommended, but only if you are already a fan of Wall Street scandals

[Darla Ebert · Rating 4 out of 5]

An eye-opener when it comes to once-wealthy moguls. Though James Hyde pillaged his father's hard-won money via a big insurance agency at the turn of the 20th century, Hyde's sad story could as easily be written today. While the craving for more and a hankering after enormous purchases of items that were "hot" at the time, the materialism and obsessions are the same today. Hyde panted and salivated after carriages and other lesser modes of transport, while within a handful of years those items were virtually obsolete. The wealthy contemporaries of current lust-ers for MORE are the same concerning cars and jewels, the latter of which will at least increase in value. Or theoretically.

[Joe Maristela · Rating 5 out of 5]

After the Ball. About the Gilded Age. America and the world at large are still recuperating from that hangover. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9...

[Tiffany Garcia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting insight to life in the early 20th century and the beginning on big corporations.

[Dawnan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very interesting biography about my Aunt's grandfather, Henry Hyde.

[Heather · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great book! If you're into Wall Street, the early 1900s, power plays, you'll enjoy this.

[Terri · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty dry and objective. Most of the research was taken from newspapers and court records. The book would have been improved with sources such as personal letters.

[D. · Rating 4 out of 5]

A story of a man who, at the age of 23 in the year 1899, inherited a majority of shares in a mammoth Equitable Life Insurance Society but was much more interested in being a socialite, housing grandiose balls, and admiring French art. It only took several years for his business empire to fall apart in a scandal oddly similar to the demise of Drexel Burnham Lambert or Enron decades later. And Patricia Beard knows how to tell a story of glamour and greed at the beginning of the twentieth century.

[Jordan Lamb · Rating 2 out of 5]

From the lens and perspective of an amateur historian the writing was too detailed on topics that were either not important or became confusing with a conflicting narrative among too many 'players'- would not recommend

[anonymousreader]

to-read

[Jessy Beauvais · Rating 5 out of 5]

Awesome...need to re-read

[Tomáš]

Tegnan odporučil,
vraj ak chcem byť podnikateľ.

[Sherry · Rating 3 out of 5]

http://www.semicolonblog.com/?p=1061

[LeeLee Bee · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book. It gave me a window into a different time (well, a few different eras). The details were things I never knew from history books (like the carriage racing hobby some rich gentlemen had, as an example). The author did a great job of fleshing in what could be (and sometimes was, a bit) boring financial details with really interesting color about people's social hobbies, looks, habbits, and so on, mostly of the very wealthy and of industry leaders from the early 1900s. Extremely well researched. I've never read a book like this before, don't know that I will again, but I liked it!