Investing in life : insurance in antebellum America Sharon Ann Murphy

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Murphy, Sharon Ann, 1974-

Series:

Studies in early American economy and society from the Library Company of Philadelphia

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Life insurance--United States--History--19th century.

Life insurance.

Insurance companies--United States--History--19th century.

Insurance companies.

United States--Economic conditions--To 1865.

United States.

Physical Description:

xii, 395 p. : ill. ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

Baltimore, Md. : Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010.

Summary:

Investing in Life considers the creation and expansion of the American life insurance industry from its early origins in the 1810s through the 1860s and examines how its growth paralleled and influenced the emergence of the middle class.

Using the economic instability of the period as her backdrop, Sharon Ann Murphy analyzes changing roles for women; the attempts to adapt slavery to an urban, industrialized setting; the rise of statistical thinking; and efforts to regulate the business environment. Her research directly challenges the conclusions of previous scholars who have dismissed the importance of the earliest industry innovators while exaggerating clerical opposition to life insurance.

Examining insurance as both a business and a social phenomenon, Murphy looks at how insurance companies positioned themselves within the marketplace, calculated risks associated with disease, intemperance, occupational hazard, and war, and battled fraud, murder, and suicide. She also discusses the role of consumers--their reasons for purchasing life insurance, their perceptions of the industry, and how their desires and demands shaped the ultimate product. --Book Jacket.

Contents:

Understanding mortality in Antebellum America: the search for a stable business model

Selecting risks in an anonymous world: the development of the agency system

Lying, cheating, and stealing versus the court of public opinion: preventing moral hazard and insurance fraud

The public interest in a private industry: life insurance and the regulatory-promotional state

Protecting women and children "in the hour of their distress": targeting the fears of an emerging middle class

Targeting the aspirations of an emerging middle class: the triumph of mutual life insurance companies

Securing human property: slavery, industrialization, and urbanization in the upper south

Acting "in defiance of providence"? The public perception of life insurance

Seeking stability in an increasingly competitive industry: the creation of the American life underwriters' convention

Insuring soldiers, insuring civilians: the civil war as a watershed for the life insurance industry

The perils of success during the postbellum years.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780801896248 (hbk. : alk. paper)

080189624X (hbk. : alk. paper)

OCLC:

461631261