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i n t r o d u c t i o n New Risks in a Changing World  A policy of Life Assurance is the cheapest and safest mode of making certain provision for one’s family. It is time our people understood and practiced more generally Life Assurance. Many a widow and orphan have great reason to be thankful that the advantage of Life Assurance was understood and embraced by the husband and father. A large amount has been paid . . . to widows and orphans when it formed almost their only recourse. —Benjamin Franklin, writing from London, 1769 Among the various modes of alleviating the misfortunes and calamities of life, which have been adopted by the inhabitants of Europe, none has more deservedly engaged the attention of the enlightened and benevolent, than the establishment of institutions for insurances on lives and granting annuities . . . The want of a company in the United States . . . has been long experienced, and it is therefore with no small degree of satisfaction, that the existence of such an institution is now announced. —Pennsylvania Company for Insurances on Lives and Granting Annuities, 1814 brochure In December of 1809, a group of prominent businessmen gathered at the Merchants ’ Coffee House in Philadelphia and decided to create the first for-profit life insurance company in America.1 When the Pennsylvania Company for Insurances on Lives and Granting Annuities finally received a charter more than two years later, its incorporation marked the birth of an industry that by the postbellum era would become ubiquitous—a quiet pillar of support against the hazards of modern life for families across the entire income spectrum and particularly for those within the emerging middle class. But in 1812, the future success of the life insurance industry 2 Investing in Life was not a foregone conclusion. Despite the positive assertions made by Pennsylvania Company executives in their advertising brochure of 1814, life insurance was neither popular among Europeans nor in high demand among Americans. The few Americans familiar with the idea of insuring a person’s life often associated it with gambling, murder, or fraud because of the sensational accounts of such crimes in Europe. The life insurance industry thus faced an uphill battle both to legitimize itself to the American public and to discover—or even create—a demand for its product. As the leading center of finance and shipping in the new republic, turn-of-thecentury Philadelphia was, not surprisingly, the insurance capital of the nation, housing numerous fire and marine insurance entities. While the charters of many of these underwriters permitted them to insure lives as well, they were largely uninterested in entering this sideline and thus rarely sold life policies.2 Philadelphia was also home to two not-for-profit life insurance companies: the Corporation for Relief of Poor and Distressed Widows and Children of Presbyterian Ministers (established in 1759) and the Corporation for the Relief of the Widows and Children of Clergymen of the Protestant Episcopal Church (established in 1769). These hybrid institutions furnished partially subsidized life policies for the ministers of their denominations , but similar protection was not offered to the public at large.3 Finally, the city’s assortment of fraternal societies often provided burial coverage for their members, but this did little to relieve the ongoing economic stress of the surviving families.4 The only recourse for the few Philadelphians seeking life insurance was to turn to a British insurer such as Pelican Life of London, which opened offices in major American cities beginning in 1806.5 Given this environment, Pennsylvania Company incorporators viewed life insurance as a potentially lucrative business opportunity despite the substantial marketing hurdles. They anticipated “a reasonable prospect of profit” because of the dramatic alterations in “the circumstances of our citizens.”6 The United States had entered a period of extensive industrialization and urbanization, which was fracturing communal relationships and familiar havens in times of need, as well as laying the groundwork for the development of a middle class. Early American women and children had been intimately involved in the successful operation of farms, artisans’ shops, and stores. But as men now ventured out into salaried employments, women’s domestic duties became increasingly divorced from the breadwinning activities of the family.7 Rapid urbanization was simultaneously removing the foundations for mutual cooperation and obligation by breaking down social ties. As one historian has remarked, “Once residents of the larger American cities left the small worlds of their neighborhoods, they plunged...

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