Table of 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.