Series Editor's Foreword
Acknowledgments
Introduction: New Risks in a Changing World
Part I: The Creation of an Industry
1. Understanding Mortality in Antebellum America: The Search for a Stable Business Model
2. Selecting Risks in an Anonymous World: The Development of the Agency System
3. Lying, Cheating, and Stealing versus The Court of Public Opinion: Preventing Moral Hazard and Insurance Fraud
4. The Public Interest in a Private Industry: Life Insurance and the Regulatory-Promotional State
Part II: Reaching Out to the Middle Class
5. Protecting Women and Children in the hour of their distress: Targeting the Fears of an Emerging Middle Class
6. Targeting the Aspirations of an Emerging Middle Class: The Triumph of Mutual Life Insurance Companies
7. Securing Human Property: Slavery, Industrialization, and Urbanization in the Upper South
8. Acting in defiance of Providence? The Public Perception of Life Insurance
Part III: Cooperation, Competition, and the Quest for Stability
9. Seeking Stability in an Increasingly Competitive Industry: The Creation of the American Life Underwriters' Convention
10. Insuring Soldiers, Insuring Civilians: The Civil War as a Watershed for the Life Insurance Industry
11. The Perils of Success during the Postbellum Years
Conclusion: Have you provided for your Family an Insuranceon your Life?
Appendix
Notes
Essay on Sources
Index