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

Beard, Patricia

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0060199393 ISBN 13: 9780060199395

Publisher: HarperCollins, 2003

Synopsis

Traces the dramatic events surrounding the Wall Street scandal of 1905, during which a young heir to a billion-dollar company was accused of misusing funds, exposing a tangle of financial chicanery involving the period's most noted tycoons and politicians. 25,000 first printing.

About this title

About the Author:

Patricia Beard is the author of six nonfiction books and hundreds of nationally published magazine articles. She has been an editor at Elle, Town & Country, and Mirabella magazines.

From Publishers Weekly:

The 1905 battle for control of the Equitable Life Assurance Society strikingly parallels the corporate scandals that dominate headlines a century later. For example, majority shareholder James Hazen Hyde, accompanied by a team of corporate lawyers, told an investigating committee he'd authorized questionable deals on the advice of executives whom he had trusted, while James W. Alexander, who sought to kick Hyde off the board, complained he was being punished for blowing the whistle on the company's shaky finances. But, as Beard, who's written for Elle and Mirabella, ably shows, Hyde didn't resemble any modern-day CEO-more like several of them rolled into one. Inheriting his position while still a bachelor in his 20s, he was a fixture on New York's society pages, arguably more famous for his wardrobe and love of high-speed carriage racing than for his job. The titular ball was an all-night costume party, complete with a private theatrical performance, with a price tag of at least $50,000. That's even more expensive than it sounds; the failure to compare dollars in 1905 and 2003 is one of the book's few flaws. With a vivid cast of supporting characters, including some of America's greatest financial titans, this lively history offers all the vicarious thrills of family drama and boardroom intrigue without making readers apprehensive about their own investment portfolios. 24 b&w illus.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0060199393
• ISBN 13: 9780060199395
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 416