Arthur F. Hall & Perry A. Randall
Background
Lincoln National Life Insurance Company was officially founded in 1905 in Fort Wayne, Indiana, driven primarily by the vision of Arthur F. Hall and a consortium of approximately thirty local businessmen. Operating in an era where the life insurance industry was frequently plagued by scandals and a 'quick profit' mentality Hall was determined to build a company explicitly rooted in unquestionable stability, dependability, and integrity. To visually and culturally cement these values, local attorney and co-founder Perry A. Randall proposed naming the company after the late President Abraham Lincoln, famously arguing, 'We want a name so proud that men and women will give their lives to keep it stainless.' To ensure the legitimacy of this branding, Hall took the extraordinary step of personally writing a letter to Robert Todd Lincoln—the President's only surviving son—formally requesting permission to use his father's name and portrait for the new commercial enterprise. Robert Lincoln granted the request, sending a photograph of his father and stating he had 'no objection whatever' to the endeavor. Arthur F. Hall assumed the role of secretary and manager, acting as the de facto chief executive from the company's inception. Under his formidable, decades-long leadership, the company survived the devastating 1918 influenza epidemic and the Great Depression, pioneered the concept of 'impaired risk' (substandard) insurance underwriting, and rapidly grew into a financial institution with over $1 billion of insurance in-force by the time Hall transitioned to chairman in 1939. This extraordinary founding story—from a small group of Fort Wayne businessmen writing letters to Abraham Lincoln's son through a century of financial industry evolution—stands as one of the most distinctive institutional origin stories in American insurance history.