Dear Colleagues, I write with the sad and shocking news that our dear friend and SHEAR president-elect Michael A. Morrison passed away on Sunday, May 14, 2017, at his residence. Michael served as a professor in the Department of History at Purdue University from 1991 to 2016, retiring after 25 years. Following his military service as a Sergeant in… Read More
Sharon Ann Murphy, a professor of history at Providence College, examines the complex interactions between financial institutions and their clientele during the nineteenth century. She is the author of Investing in Life: Insurance in Antebellum America (2010), winner of the 2012 Hagley Prize for the best book in business history. Her newest book is Other People’s… Read More
In June 1820, several dozen legislators gathered in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, then the state capital, for an emergency session. Their goal was “Relief”: legislative action to protect Tennessee households from economic crisis. The previous year, as the Panic of 1819 first hit, these same representatives had passed a law to prevent creditors from suing debtors. Now they wanted to charter… Read More
