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James Hazen Hyde papers

Call Number

MS 319

Date

1874-1940, 1953, inclusive

Creator

Hyde, James H. (James Hazen), 1876-1959

Extent

31.67 Linear feet in 34 boxes, 6 oversize volumes, and 2 oversize folders

Language of Materials

The collection is roughly two-thirds French and one-third English. There is also a sizable amount of German, especially in the clippings and other print matter in the Diaries series.

Abstract

Collection consists of correspondence, diaries, scrapbooks, photographs, and other papers of James Hazen Hyde (1876-1959). The papers are especially strong in two areas: documentation of Hyde's efforts at expanding knowledge of French culture in America from circa 1894-1905 through the Cercle Français de l'Université Harvard and the Fédération de l'Alliance Francaise, and documentation of his activities as an expatriate living in France from 1906 to 1941. His correspondence includes a large collection of letters to and from his mother, Annie F. Hyde, from 1891-1921; documentation of Red Cross activities in France during World War I; and Hyde's ongoing initiatives to expand Franco-American cultural exchange. His correspondence and diaries (which date from 1922-1940) include extensive references to Hyde's social life, anecdotes and comments about prominent persons, especially diplomats, government officials, military officers, academics, journalists, industrialists, and those from cultural circles from France, the United States, and Britain. Most of the collection is in French.

Biographical / Historical

James Hazen Hyde (1876-1959) was born in New York City, the son of Henry Baldwin Hyde (1834-1899), who had founded the Equitable Life Assurance Company of the United States in 1859, and Annie (Fitch) Hyde (1845-1922). Hyde attended Cutler School in New York and entered Harvard College in 1894. At some point in his youth, Hyde picked up the nickname "Caleb" and correspondence from family and some friends used that name when addressing him.

A lifelong Francophile, Hyde joined the Cercle Francais de l'Universite Harvard, a society of students interested in French culture and literature and proficient in the language. While president of the club in 1897, Hyde received from his father $30,000 to form a trust to fund annual French lectures at Harvard under the auspices of the Cercle Francais. The first of these was delivered in March 1898 by René Doumic. Hyde's initiative led to him being named a member (Chevalier) of the French Legion of Honor in 1900. He would be promoted to the highest ranks in the Legion in the 1920s. In 1904, Hyde supported a counterpart program in France, whereby American academics from Harvard would lecture at the Sorbonne and France's provincial universities; Barrett Wendell was the first of these lecturers. (See the Harvard Register of 1905-06, page 88 (on-line) and, especially, Hyde's description to George Nettleton in this collection of the Cercle and later lectures and Hyde's involvement with them.)

After graduating from Harvard in 1898 with degrees in German and French, Hyde joined his father at the Equitable in the high-ranking position of Second Vice-President. At the time, Hyde's father, Henry, was president and controlling shareholder of the company he had founded, having built it into a firm with perhaps 600,000 policyholders and $400 million of assets. Henry died the following year, in 1899, at age 65, bequeathing to his son the controlling shares. Equitable's First Vice-President James W. Alexander ascended to the presidency and Hyde advanced to First Vice-President.

Over the next few years, Hyde expanded his financial interests, taking on directorships of various banking and other firms. His wealth also grew and his passion for French culture continued, both of which he flaunted. And his position as First Vice-President at Equitable put him in line to become company president. These factors culminated in Hyde's downfall as a businessman in 1905. In January of that year he hosted an ostentatious Versailles-themed costume ball for New York's wealthy elite. The extreme extravagance of the event led to not only general criticism in the press, but investigations into whether Hyde had misappropriated company funds for the purpose. Those at the Equitable looking to oust him from his position of power used the opportunity to deride him as reckless and unfit for the management of a financial firm. By the end of the year Hyde had resigned his position at the Equitable and his many directorships and sold his controlling interest in Equitable to Thomas Fortune Ryan. In December 1905, he sailed to France, where he would live until 1941, returning to America only when forced in the face of Nazi Germany's defeat of France.

During his years in France, Hyde leveraged his wealth to rebuild his reputation, remaking himself as a philanthropist, patron of the arts, and cultural ambassador. As a foundation, he expanded on the French-American cultural exchanges he had begun during his college years. In 1911, when Harvard formalized its own exchange of professors with the Sorbonne, Hyde redirected trust funds to support a continuing series of Harvard lecturers visiting the provinces. He maintained relationships with American diplomats, journalists, military officials, and others, acting as an unofficial guide to French culture and point of introduction to important French contacts. He traveled widely in Europe, and also to the Middle and Far East, enabling him to be a source of information for Americans new to the European scene. He delivered public remarks at times and wrote newspaper articles. During World War I, he gave over his home at 18 rue Adolphe Yvon in Paris to the Red Cross to use as a hospital and he worked as aide to Colonel Harvey D. Gibson, Commissioner for France of the American Red Cross.

After WWI, when the American Field Service created its Fellowships for French Universities, Hyde was on the Advisory Board. In the 1920s, Hyde was on the Executive Committee of the Continental Division of the American University in Europe, among other positions involving cultural exchange. As a philanthropist, among the many projects he supported were Albert Lythgoe's Egyptian archaeological expeditions and the acquisition and restoration of Madame Pompadour's residence at Versailles. He collected art, including a large number of allegorical prints now in the collections of New-York Historical Society. In recognition of his cultural and philanthropic services, Hyde was awarded the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor in 1928 and was elected to the French Academy of Political and Moral Sciences in 1938, among other honors.

In 1913 in Paris, Hyde married for the first time and his wedding was emblematic of his French-American interconnections. His bride was Countess Louis de Gontaut-Biron, whose first husband, a member of the old French aristocracy, had died in 1907. She was American, her maiden name being Marthe Leishman, the daughter of a former United States ambassador to Germany. Hyde's best man was Myron T. Herrick, the American ambassador to France. The Hydes had one son, Henry Baldwin Hyde (1915-1997), and they divorced in 1918; the New York Times reported that the cause was Marthe's sympathies toward the Germans during World War I. Nonetheless, as Hyde's diaries show, Marthe and Hyde stayed in touch over the years, notably in connection with their son; Marthe sent congratulations to Hyde on the occasion of his promotion to Grand Officer of the Legion of Honor in 1923 (see Series V, Volume 3).

Hyde remarried in 1930, to Countess Ella Matuschka, who was also an American (from Detroit) and who was previously married to a German officer. Hyde left her in 1931 and was sued for divorce in 1932. That same year, Hyde married a third time to Madame Thome (nee Stephanie Dervaux?), whose husband, Andre Thome, had been killed at Verdun.

On his return to the United States in 1941, Hyde lived at the Savoy-Plaza Hotel in New York and summered in Saratoga Springs. Over time in the 1940s and 1950s, he donated his papers and some of his artwork to the New-York Historical Society. He died of pneumonia in 1959 at the Gideon Putnam Hotel in Saratoga Springs.

Arrangement

The collection is organized in eight series:

Series I. General Correspondence (1878, 1892-1939, 1953)

Series II. Correspondence with Annie Fitch Hyde (circa 1891-1922)

Series III: Correspondence Concerning Federation de l'Alliance Francaise (1898-1935)

Series IV. Diaries (1922-1940)

Series V. Cercle Francais and Other, Related Scrapbooks (1894-1905)

Series VI. Legion of Honor Letter Books (1921, 1923, 1928)

Series VII. Henry Baldwin Hyde Memorial Books (1874, 1894, 1899-1900)

Series VIII. Photographs and Certificates (circa 1880s-1953)

Scope and Contents

The collection consists of James Hazen Hyde's correspondence, diaries, scrapbooks, photographs, and other papers dating primarily from the 1890s, when he was an undergraduate student at Harvard, through 1940, shortly before he returned to the United States from France. Hyde's involvement with the Cercle Français de l'Université Harvard and the Fédération de l'Alliance Francaise in the 1890s-circa 1904 are well-documented in correspondence and scrapbooks. Hyde's diaries begin in 1922 and end in 1940, that is, for the latter half of his time residing in France. They include details of his social engagements, anecdotes and comments about prominent persons, descriptions of his travel, and visits to cultural events and institutions, and include clippings, theatre and opera programs, and other print matter related to his activities and interests.

Hyde's correspondence files extend principally from the 1890s to the 1930s, and especially pertain to his interest in Franco-American relations, e.g. American Field Service Fellowships, arranging American lecture tours by French professors and vice versa, and his work in the American Red Cross in France during World War I. Hyde's correspondents include diplomats, government officials, military officers, academics, journalists, industrialists, and those from cultural circles, though the extent and substance of each is uneven. The container list of the finding aid includes an inventory of the correspondents. Especially rich is a large collection of correspondence between Hyde and his mother, Annie Fitch Hyde, from 1891 to 1921. Much of the correspondence files include both incoming and Hyde's outgoing letters. Although the correspondence with his mother and others touch at times on financial and business matters, there seems to be relatively little on Hyde's activities as an Equitable Assurance Company officer or in his other commercial enterprises prior to departing the U.S. in 1905.

One set of bound volumes in the collection hold congratulatory letters to Hyde on his promotions within the French Legion of Honor in the 1920s. Another set are memorial books with condolence letters and other documents related to the death of Hyde's father, Henry Baldwin Hyde in 1899. There are a few family photographs and diplomas/certificates.

An extensive amount of the collection, likely well more than half, is in French. Some, especially print matter in the diaries, is in German.

Subjects

People

Allen, Henry T. (Henry Tureman), 1859-1930; Andrew, A. Piatt (Abram Piatt), 1873-1936; Azan, Paul, 1874-1951; Barrès, Maurice, 1862-1923; Barthou, Louis, 1862-1934; Bergson, Henri, 1859-1941; Berthelot, Philippe, 1866-1934; Breasted, James Henry, 1865-1935; Cambon, Jules, 1845-1935; Carrel, Alexis, 1873-1944; Clemenceau, Georges, 1841-1929; Clifton, Chalmers, 1889-1966; Coolidge, Archibald Cary, 1866-1928; Cuyler, Thomas Dewitt, 1854-1922; Depew, Chauncey M. (Chauncey Mitchell), 1834-1928; Doumer, Paul, 1857-1932; Doumic, René, 1860-1937; Ferrero, Guglielmo, 1871-1942; Finley, John H. (John Huston), 1863-1940; Foch, Ferdinand, 1851-1929; Ford, J. D. M. (Jeremiah Denis Matthias), 1873-1958; Funck-Brentano, Frantz, 1862-1947; Frick, Henry Clay, 1849-1919; Gardner, Isabella Stewart, 1840-1924; Garner, James Wilford, 1871-1938; Gouraud, Henri, 1867-1946; Gregory, Eliot, 1854-1915; Herrick, Myron T. (Myron Timothy), 1854-1929; Hyde, Annie Fitch, 1845-1922; Kahn, Otto H., 1867-1934; Kerney, James, 1873-1934; Lavisse, Ernest, 1842-1922; Le Braz, Anatole, 1859-1926; Lebrun, Albert, 1871-1950; Lecomte, Georges, 1867-1958; Morris, Gouverneur, 1876-1953; Ochs, Adolph S. (Adolph Simon), 1858-1935; Peabody, Endicott, 1857-1944; Perry, Bliss, 1860-1954; Pershing, John J. (John Joseph), 1860-1948; Poincaré, Lucien, 1862-1920; Poincaré, Raymond, 1860-1934; Prévost, Marcel, 1862-1941; Recouly, Raymond, 1876-1950; Rodin, Auguste, 1840-1917; Roosevelt, Theodore, 1858-1919; Roy, Edouard; Régnier, Henri de, 1864-1936; Stokes, Anson Phelps, 1874-1958; Strong, Eugénie, 1860-1943; Sumichrast, Frederick C. de (Frederick Caesar de), 1845-1933; Tardieu, André, 1876-1945; Untermyer, Samuel, 1858-1940; Ward, John Quincy Adams, 1830-1910; Weill, Félix, 1871-; Westinghouse, George, 1846-1914

Conditions Governing Access

Open to qualified researchers.

Conditions Governing Use

Photocopying undertaken by staff only. Limited to twenty exposures of stable, unbound material per day. (Researchers may not accrue unused copy amounts from previous days.) This collection is owned by the New-York Historical Society. The copyright law of the United States governs the making of photocopies and protects unpublished materials as well as published materials. Unpublished materials created before January 1, 1978 cannot be quoted in publication without permission of the copyright holder.

Preferred Citation

This collection should be cited as the James Hazen Hyde Papers, MS 319, New-York Historical Society.

Immediate Source of Acquisition

James Hazen Hyde made various donations in a piecemeal fashion to N-YHS over the course of the 1940s and 1950s. This collection includes most of the personal papers he donated. The various acquisition dates for the materials in Series III-VII are noted at the series level. All those materials were donated with Hyde's stipulation that they would not be made available until after his death, which occurred in 1959.

It is not clear when the correspondence in Series I and II was donated. At points in the 1940s and 1950s, Hyde informed N-YHS's director at the time that he was going through the correspondence to identify what he would donate (he was discarding "uninteresting and personal letters"), again with the stipulation that it would not be available until after his death. A list of notable correspondents is in the archive from 1959 so the correspondence was donated no later than then.

Related Materials

Over the course of the 1940s-1950s, Hyde made many donations to New-York Historical of manuscripts, photographs, prints, objects, and other material. These arrived in a piecemeal fashion and were separated to various departments and collections in the library and museum. Following are some of the Hyde donations related to this collection:

The following manuscripts were donated by Hyde and cataloged under separate call numbers:

* A small collection of six letters titled "James Hazen Hyde collection" (call AHMC - Hyde, James Hazen)

* George Henry Nettleton letter to James Hazen Hyde, 1947 March 24 (call AHMC - Nettleton, George Henry)

* Woodrow Wilson letter to James H. Hyde, 1903 March 16 (call AHMC - Wilson, Woodrow – Hyde)

* An exchange between Hyde and Charles Francis Adams in the Charles Francis Adams papers (call AHMC - Adams, Charles Francis (1835-1915))

N-YHS's institutional archive holds correspondence related to Hyde's various donations. See the New-York Historical Society General Correspondence record group (NYHS-RG 2) and search for Hyde.

The Department of Prints, Photographs and Architectural Collections holds the James H. Hyde collection of allegorical prints of the four continents (PR-27).

A search on James Hazen Hyde in N-YHS's catalog, Bobcat, will yield other print matter related to Hyde, including works authored by Hyde.

Some of the correspondence files in this collection refer to Hyde's efforts to create a "New Theatre" in New York. These happen to be outliers from a larger set of correspondence originally in Hyde's files. Among the many donations Hyde offered to N-YHS in the 1950s was his "dossier" concerning Winthrop Ames and the development of the New Theatre, which opened in 1909. N-YHS's director at the time suggested to Hyde that those papers be donated to the New York Public Library, which held extensive related material. These can be found at NYPL under the title James Hazen Hyde papers (call MssCol 1471).

Collection processed by

Larry Weimer, with Alec Ferretti, Jennifer Gargiulo, and Aaron Roffman

About this Guide

This finding aid was produced using ArchivesSpace on 2023-08-21 15:47:24 -0400.
Using Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Language: Finding aid written in English

Repository

New-York Historical Society
New-York Historical Society
170 Central Park West
New York, NY 10024