This month in New York Life history—August.

At New York Life

2022

August 23: The New York Life Foundation adds Social Justice as a third focus area in addition to childhood bereavement and educational enhancement.

2014

August 26: One Last Hug: Three Days at Grief Camp, an HBO (now MAX) documentary partially funded by the New York Life Foundation, received the 2014 Emmy Award for Outstanding Children's Program.

1993

August 23: New York Life International (then New York Life Worldwide Holding) announced its expansion into Mexico through the acquisition of Compania de Seguros, S.A.

1947

August 20: Mildred McAfee Horton was elected to be the first woman director of New York Life. At the time, Horton was the president of Wellesley College and a former director of the women’s branch of the Naval Reserve during World War II. New York Life President George Harrison celebrated her election, declaring that “with a large number of women holding insurance or serving as beneficiaries in policies, it is only natural that they should be represented on the directorate.”

1923

August 2: Sitting U.S. President and New York Life policy owner Warren G. Harding died suddenly of a heart attack. He was succeeded as president by another New York Life policy owner (and future member of the board of directors), Calvin Coolidge.  

1860

August 13: New York Life changed the American life insurance industry forever with the first American policy to contain a non-forfeiture clause. Policy 14,415, on the life of William Harrison Sigourney for $1,000, contained a provision that, in the event of a missed payment, the policy owner was entitled to a prorated benefit or refund of some sort instead of simply losing all the money spent on premiums up to that point. At the time, most insurers were against such a measure because of the expense involved, but New York Life embraced the practice as “strictly equitable” from a financial perspective.

1859

August 10: New York Life became a coast-to-coast company when it opened its first West Coast agency in San Francisco.

Around the world

1969

August 15: Woodstock began in a field near Yasgur’s Farm at Bethel, New York. The three-day concert featured 24 rock bands and drew a crowd of more than 300,000 young people.

1961

August 13: The Berlin Wall came into existence after the East German government closed the border between east and west sectors of Berlin with barbed wire to discourage emigration to the West.

1959

August 21: President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed a proclamation admitting Hawaii to the Union as the 50th state.

1881

August 6: Penicillin discoverer Alexander Fleming was born in Lochfield, Scotland. He received the Nobel Prize in 1954.

1779

August 1: Star-Spangled Banner author Francis Scott Key was born in Frederick County, Maryland.

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