The Postcard
A postally unused postcard that was published by the B. S. Reynolds Co. of 1202, D. Street Northwest, Washington, D.C. The card was produced by C. T. American Art Colored of Chicago.
The card has a divided back. In the space for the stamp it states:
'Place One Cent
Stamp Here.'
Also printed on the back of the card is the following:
'The Printing Press.
By John W. Alexander.
Mural Painting in the
Library of Congress
in Washington, D.C.
Gutenberg, the inventor of
printing, is reading a proof
which has just come from
the press.'
The man on the right seems to have adopted a very peculiar stance - unless he is bracing his feet against a wall on the right, he is about to fall over.
The Evolution of the Book
The Evolution of the Book is a series of six murals painted circa 1896 by John W. Alexander in the Library of Congress Thomas Jefferson Building.
John White Alexander
John White Alexander was born in Allegheny, Pennsylvania on the 7th. October 1856. He was an American portrait, figure, and decorative painter and illustrator.
John White Alexander - The Early Years
John was orphaned in infancy, and was reared by his grandparents. At the age of 12, he became a telegraph boy in Pittsburgh.
Edward J. Allen became an early supporter and patron of John, adopting him while he worked at the Pacific and Atlantic Telegraph Co. as a young man.
Allen brought Alexander to the Allen home at "Edgehill" where Alexander painted various members of the Allen family, including Colonel Allen.
John moved to New York City at the age of 18 and worked in an office at Harper's Weekly, where he was an illustrator and political cartoonist at the same time that Abbey, Pennell, Pyle, and other celebrated illustrators worked there.
After an apprenticeship of three years, he traveled to Munich for his first formal training. Owing to a lack of funds, he moved to the village of Polling, Bavaria, and worked with Frank Duveneck. They traveled to Venice, where he profited by the advice of Whistler, and then he continued his studies in Florence, Italy; the Netherlands; and Paris.
John White Alexander's Career
In 1881, John returned to New York City and speedily achieved great success in portraiture, numbering among his sitters Oliver Wendell Holmes, John Burroughs, Henry G. Marquand, R.A.L. Stevenson, and president McCosh of Princeton University.
John's first exhibition in the Paris Salon of 1893 was a brilliant success, and was followed by his immediate election to the Société Nationale des Beaux Arts.
Many additional honors were bestowed on him. In 1889 he painted for Mrs. Jeremiah Milbank a well-received portrait of Walt Whitman and one of her husband.
In 1901, he was named Chevalier of the Legion of Honor, and in 1902, he became a member of the National Academy of Design, where he served as president from 1909 to 1915. He was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
Among the gold medals received by him were those of the Paris Exposition (1900) and the World's Fair in St. Louis, Missouri (1904). He served as President of the National Society of Mural Painters from 1914 to 1915.
John White Alexander's Personal Life and Death
Alexander was married to Elizabeth Alexander, to whom he was introduced in part because of their shared last name. Elizabeth was the daughter of James Waddell Alexander, President of the Equitable Life Assurance Society at the time of the Hyde Ball scandal. The Alexanders had one child, the mathematician James Waddell Alexander II.
Alexander died at the age of 58 in New York on the 31st. May 1915.
John White Alexander's Works
Many of John's paintings are in museums and public places in the United States and in Europe, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Brooklyn Art Museum, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the Butler Institute, and the Library of Congress in Washington D.C.
In addition, in the entrance hall to the Art Museum of the Carnegie Institute in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, a series of Alexander's murals titled "Apotheosis of Pittsburgh" (1905–1907) covers the walls of the three-story atrium area.
Alexander's artist's proof of his portrait of Whitman, signed by the artist in April 1911, is in the Walt Whitman Collection at the University of Pennsylvania.
The Hyde Ball Scandal
James Hazen Hyde (June 6, 1876 — July 26, 1959) 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 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.
James Hazen Hyde's Career
James was appointed a vice president of The Equitable after graduating from college. In addition, he served on the boards of directors of more than 40 other companies, including the Wabash Railroad and Western Union.
His homes included a large estate on Long Island, where he maintained horses, stables, roads, and trails to engage in coach racing. He also took part in horse shows and horse racing. Hyde accumulated a collection of coaches and carriages, which he later donated to the Shelburne Museum.
Removal from The Equitable
Following his father's death, Hyde was the majority shareholder and in effective control of The Equitable. By the terms of his father's will, he was scheduled to assume the presidency of the company in 1906.
Members of the board of directors, including E. H. Harriman, Henry Clay Frick, J.P. Morgan, and company President James Waddell Alexander attempted to wrest control from Hyde through a variety of means, including an unsuccessful attempt to have him appointed as Ambassador to France.
On the last night of January 1905, Hyde hosted a highly publicized Versailles-themed costume ball. Falsely accused through a coordinated smear campaign initiated by his opponents at The Equitable of charging the $200,000 party ($6,032,000 today) to the company, Hyde soon found himself drawn into a maelstrom of allegations of corporate malfeasance.
The allegations almost caused a Wall Street panic, and eventually led to a state investigation of New York's entire insurance industry which resulted in laws to regulate activities between insurance companies, banks and other corporations.
Hyde's personal net worth in 1905 was about $20 million ($603,200,000 today). After the negative press generated by the efforts to remove him from The Equitable, Hyde resigned from the company later that same year, gave up most of his other business activities, and moved to France.
