Alexander James Harper was an American businessman and politician who served as President of the Common Council (City Council) of Philadelphia during the time of the United States Civil War. Harper was born July 13, 1816 in Philadelphia, son of the brick manufacturer (and later US Congressman) James Harper and his wife Charlotte Alford Sloan Harper. In 1838, he married Caroline Emily Holmes, connecting his family by kinship to a set of New England political families that included the Adams family of Massachusetts. Caroline died shortly after the birth of their only child, who would grow up to be the businessman and inventor James Holmes Harper.