8:30 - 9:00

Registration and refreshments

9:00 - 9:30

Opening remarks                                   

John C. Van Horne, Librarian, Library Company of Philadelphia

Cathy Matson, Associate Professor of History, University of Delaware and Director, Program in Early American Economy and Society

9:30 - 11:00

A. Glenn Crothers, Assistant Professor of History, Indiana University Southeast.

"Managing Risk on the High Seas: Virginia Merchants and the Incorporation of Marine Insurance, 1760-1815"

Comment:  Jane Kamensky, Associate Professor of History, Brandeis University

11:00 - 11:15

11:15 - 12:45 

Joseph T. Rainer, Research Associate, HarperWeek, LLC.

"Between Rocky Soil and a Hard Marketplace: Opportunities and Risks Faced by Aspiring New England Peddlers, 1800-1845"

Comment:  Brian Luskey, Ph.D. Candidate, Emory University

12:45-2:15

2:15 - 3:45

Matthew Mulcahy, Assistant Professor of History, College of Loyola (Baltimore).

"Weathering the Storms: Hurricanes and Plantation Agriculture in the BritishGreater Caribbean"                                             

Comment:  Bruce Mann, Professor of Law and History, University of Pennsylvania

3:45 - 4:00

4:00 - 4:15

Carol Wojtowicz Smith, Consulting Archivist for the Philadelphia Contributionship.

"The Research Potential of Early American Insurance Records"

4:15 - 5:45

Edward Balleisen, Associate Professor, Duke University.

"Reckoning with Risk: Responses to Business Failure and the Transformation of Nineteenth Century American Capitalism"

Comment:  Toby Ditz, Professor of History, Johns Hopkins University     

5:45 - 7:00