Wallace Stevens was born in Reading, Pennsylvani
a in 1879. He attended Harvard College for three years, where he began writing poetry and journalism but did not graduate. Stevens then moved to New York, where he earned a law degree from New York Law School in 1903 and was admitted to the bar in 1904. After failing to establish himself in legal practice, he took his first insurance job with the New York office of the American Bonding Co. in 1908. A few job moves later, Stevens relocated to Connecticut and joined the Hartford Accident and Indemnity Co., where he stayed for the rest of his career. His professional specialty was the field of surety bonds, and evidently he was skillful and imaginative at handling difficult claims. In 1934, Stevens was named a vice president at Hartford, making him one of the company’s senior officers.
