James Meade

James T. Meade (or Mead) was a real estate and insurance executive, a member of the Birmingham Board of Aldermen under three mayors in the 1890s, and a vestryman at St Mary's-on-the-Highlands Episcopal Church.

Meade joined with Charles Erwin and J. L. Ward to found the Alabama Real Estate and Loan Association on August 30, 1886. In 1889 he kept his own real-estate office at 2106 2nd Avenue North.

During the Panic of 1893, Meade traveled with banker Burghard Steiner and Judge A. C. Howze to ask holders of Birmingham municipal bonds to accept deferred interest for a period of five years in an effort to prevent default.

He served as an executive with the Merchants' Insurance Company and the Continental Insurance Company. In 1896 he sold his interest in the firm of Meade, Smith & Company, for which he represented the Mutual Fire Insurance Company of New York, to become an agent of the Travelers' Insurance Company.