James Hazen Hyde was twenty-three in 1899 when he inherited the majority shares in the billion-dollar Equitable Life Assurance Society.

Hyde's efforts included the endowment of a fund to defray professor's expenses, and he received the Legion of Honor (Chevalier) from the government of France.

His homes included a large estate on Long Island, where Hyde maintained horses, stables, roads, and trails to engage in coach racing.

[14] Falsely accused through a coordinated smear campaign initiated by his opponents at The Equitable of charging the $200,000 party ($6,782,000 today) to the company, Hyde soon found himself drawn into a maelstrom of allegations of his corporate malfeasance.

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.

When the United States entered the war Hyde was commissioned as a Captain and assigned as an aide to Grayson Murphy, the High Commissioner of the American Red Cross in France.

Through this organization's auspices Hyde set up a series of annual lectures for American professors visiting French universities.

Before their divorce in 1918, which was reportedly over her strong personal attachment to Germany and not the result of the involvement of another man or woman, they were the parents of:[19] His ex-wife died in 1944.