About Hannah Farber
Hannah Farber is an assistant professor of history at Columbia University. She specializes in the political economy of colonial North America, the early American republic, and the Atlantic World.
Her first book, Underwriters of the United States explains how the transnational system of marine insurance, by governing the behavior of American merchants, influenced the establishment and early development of the American republic.
Additional research interests include early modern globalization and the visual and material culture of ocean commerce. Early-stage projects include a cultural history of interest rates and a study of commercial property marks as phenomena with visual, material, and legal aspects.
You can find Hannah Farber on Twitter.
Underwriters of the United States: How Insurance Shaped the American Founding
Unassuming but formidable, American maritime insurers used their position at the pinnacle of global trade to shape the new nation. The international information they gathered and the capital they generated enabled them to play central roles in state-building and economic development.
During the Revolution, they helped the U.S. negotiate foreign loans, sell state debts, and establish a single national bank. Afterward, they increased their influence by lending money to the federal government and to its citizens.
Even as federal and state governments began to encroach on their domain, maritime insurers adapted, preserving their autonomy and authority through extensive involvement in the formation of commercial law.
Leveraging their claims to unmatched expertise, they operated free from government interference while simultaneously embedding themselves into the nation’s institutional fabric. By the early nineteenth century, insurers were no longer just risk assessors. They were nation builders and market makers.
Deeply and imaginatively researched, Underwriters of the United States uses marine insurers to reveal a startlingly original story of risk, money, and power in the founding era.