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Edward M. Teall (1839-1907) was president of the
Chicago Underwriters Association, a group of
insurance agents, today known as the Chicago Board
of Underwriters. It was founded in 1849 to regulate
insurance rates. I confess having found little
to like about him.
Historically, insurance underwriters have played an important role in
improving fire protection, but I'm not sure Edward
Teall's contribution in Chicago during the early
1900s was a positive one. In 1903 and 1906 he used
his position with the Underwriters association to
try to control the appointments of a fire chiefs in
Chicago. He seemed more motivated by political
interests than selfless concern for his city's fire
safety.
On January 3, 1904, four days
after the Iroquois Theater fire, the Underwriters
made a statement rejecting any responsibility on
their part for the tragedy. Though not directly
quoted, Teall was almost certainly the spokesman.
Their position was that they used rate premiums to
coerce building owners into taking fire preventive
measures. Before the Iroquois Theater fire,
underwriters charged a premium surcharge of $.50 per
$100 of coverage for theaters that had not installed
stage sprinklers. The amount was so small that
Chicago theaters paid it rather than equip their
theaters with sprinklers. After the fire, they
announced they would review that surcharge and make
amendments.
Fire-preventive sprinklers had been around for
two decades in factories, to protect inventory and
machinery. Consumer litigation, however, was so
uncommon that hospitals, schools, theaters, and
churches did not carry insurance to protect
themselves from customer lawsuits. The prevailing
assumption was that people entered such
establishments of their own volition and accepted
accordant risk.
Because the Iroquois Theater
qualified under Chicago ordinance as a fireproofed
building,* the sprinklers surcharge did not apply.
The same was true of the $.10 surcharge for not
having a fire alarm telegraph, and the $.35 for not
having approved fire equipment.
After the fire, Chicago industrialist, Charles
Crane, hired fire insurance expert,
John Ripley Freeman, to conduct an extensive
investigation of the Iroquois Theater. Freeman
proposed some limited testing at the theater that
involved fire, and Crane agreed to compensate the
owners if the test fires caused damage to adjacent
buildings. No small promise considering that one of
those was the seven-story real estate building,
today known as the
Delaware building, that comprised a quarter of a
city block.
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Chicago theater owners gave their permission, but the
Underwriters (Teall) adamantly refused. To his
credit, Freeman set up a laboratory elsewhere to
test fire curtains and scenery paint. (His testing
is impressive.
Read a pdf file of his report.)
Teall opposed a double platoon system in the fire
department, favoring a three-million-dollar
high-pressure water system desired by fireman James
Horan. One alderman estimated that a second platoon
would require hiring 471 men for $470,000. Teall
insisted 600 more men would be needed, making the
cost for a second platoon comparable to a
high-pressure water system. Possibly both a second
platoon and improvements in the water pressure were
justified but Teall's campaigning seemed more about
Horan and politics than fire fighting.
Edward Teal was the sort of man who notified newspapers
when he and his wife went on vacation, though there
was nothing to suggest they were part of Society.
Biographical anthologies were his favorite boasting
platforms. Self-promotion in biography anthologies was
popular in the late 1800s and early 1900s, but even
by the standards of the time, Teall's bios were
excessive. Not content to list his clubs, he also
specified offices held and for how many years.
He outlined his prestigious ancestry and that of his
wife. He mentioned that he'd declined numerous
nominations for political office. He was active in
republican politics and held office in organizations
such as the Underwriters Association, the Poor
Relief Aid Society, the Society of Colonial Wars,
his Presbyterian church, and Sons of the American
Revolution. For all his self-promotion, in looking
through newspaper mentions during the last twenty
years of his life, I found zero indication of
friendly relationships. At his death, members of the
Underwriters association debated whether a memorial
gift in his name to the Presbyterian Hospital was an
unnecessary expense.
A native of Albany, New York, Teall came to Chicago
in 1857 and went to work for an insurance company,
eventually forming a brokerage. In 1862 he married
Katherine "Kate" Mead Teall (1844-1900 ). They had
one child. At the time of Kate's death, her two
brothers, Theodore and Clinton Mead, lived with them
at 522 W. Adams St. Edward's business was successful
enough that he owned his home, employed two live-in
servants and summered at a farm in Stockbridge,
Massachusetts where he raised dairy cows and
trotting horses.† In 1902 he married widow Alice
Kelsey Patterson. After Teall's death, his business
partner and Alice carried on the insurance business.
Alice remarried seven years later, to another
insurance man. |
