Background
Josephine Bay Paul was born on August 10, 1900 in Anamosa, Jones County, Iowa, United States. She was the daughter of Otis Lincoln Perfect, a realtor, and of Tirzah Holt. When she was six, the family moved to Brooklyn, New York.
Josephine Bay Paul was born on August 10, 1900 in Anamosa, Jones County, Iowa, United States. She was the daughter of Otis Lincoln Perfect, a realtor, and of Tirzah Holt. When she was six, the family moved to Brooklyn, New York.
Josephine Bay Paul graduated in 1916 from Brooklyn Heights Seminary, a fashionable finishing school, and then attended Colorado College, in Manitou (1916 - 1917).
Josephine Bay Paul then worked briefly as a secretary. Perfect's abilities as a businesswoman were early evidenced when she and her younger sister, Tirzah, ran a flourishing greeting card business in Brooklyn (1928 - 1933). Tirzah was responsible for the design work while Josephine traveled as far as the Midwest as sales manager. During this period she revitalized the moribund Junior League of Brooklyn and made it solvent enough to pay off its outstanding debts. From 1946 to 1953, Bay was United States ambassador to Norway.
In 1955 the Tennessee Transmission Company purchased Bay's interest in Bay Petroleum for approximately $20 million. After her husband's death on December 31, 1955, Josephine Bay assumed many of his directorships and became chairman of the executive committee of the American Export Lines, representing a third of the common shares. She had been a member of the board of directors since May 18, 1955, and was the first woman to control a major steamship company in the United States. She at once set about reorganizing the firm. On December 1, 1956, Bay was named president and chairman of the board of A. M. Kidder, of which her husband had been a partner, thus becoming the first woman to head a member firm of the New York Stock Exchange. For months following the death of Charles Bay, there had been doubts on Wall Street as to the future of the ninety-two-year-old firm. Bay said that her husband would have wanted her to carry on the family tradition in A. M. Kidder, so she insisted on succeeding him.
On March 15, 1957, Josephine Bay Paul was awarded the Commander's Cross of the Order of St. Olaf by Norway for humanitarian services in that country while her first husband was United States ambassador. In May 1962, President John F. Kennedy named her to the advisory committee of the National Cultural Center. Paul and both her husbands were known for their generous gifts to charitable, educational, and cultural institutions. Her first husband established the Charles Ulrick and Josephine Bay Foundation (1950), to further medical research and education. In 1958 she gave four tapestries, valued at $18, 000, to Fairleigh Dickinson University. In November 1962, in memory of his wife, Capton Paul donated $100, 000 to the National Cultural Center, the largest gift made to it to that time. One of Paul's favorite avocations was horse racing. She owned fifteen horses, including Idun, the champion filly of 1957. She once remarked that she was interested in horse racing only as a hobby but that keeping a bad horse was just as expensive as keeping a good one. Paul moved in the highest echelons of society. She entertained Princess Astrid of Norway in her Palm Beach, Florida, mansion and Adlai Stevenson at her home on Oslo Fjord, Norway, and she turned her Palm Beach mansion over to President and Mrs. Kennedy for the Christmas season of 1961. She also had residences at Palm Springs and Pacific Palisades, California, and in upper New York state, as well as in New York City. Paul's philosophy of business was straightforward and simple. Her object, she said, was to make money and to spend it well. Money well spent created wealth for others. She died in New York City on August 6, 1962.
On August 30, 1942, Josephine Bay Paul married her longtime employer Charles Ulrick Bay, a wealthy Norwegian-American broker and investor. Perfect and Bay had been constant companions since about 1923, and Bay's mother had frequently traveled with them. While living in Norway, the Bays adopted three children. On January 1, 1959, Bay married Capton Michael Paul, an oil operator and investment banker.