| THE STATE IN THE MARYLAND
ECONOMY, 1776-1807
BY MARY JANE DOwD
(Continued from June)
CORPORATE PRIVILEGES AND STATE PARTICIPATION
Before 1800 Maryland had incorporated six insurance com-
panies: only Rhode Island, among the other states, had char-
tered as many. In 180 7 there were ten such companies char-
tered by the Maryland General Assembly.
By the end of the eighteenth century two types of insurance
business had become important in the American states. Ma-
rine insurance, which had been carried on in America by pri-
vate underwriters or partnerships since the 1720's, became in-
creasingly essential with the growth of American shipping after
the Revolution. Insurance against fire usually had not been
necessary in the early eighteenth century. Then, as more and
more people crowded into towns, which were often composed
principally of wooden buildings, state governments sought
measures for protection against destruction of life and prop-
erty."" This public concern probably accounts for the appear-
ance of the corporate form of organization in the field of fire
insurance before its appearance in marine insurance-under-
writing.
Fire insurance companies, of which Maryland had five, were
chartered either as mutual or joint-stock companies. The
" Baltimore Insurance Fire Company," the first in the United
"'Joseph S. Davis Essays in the Earlier History of American Corporations
(Cambridge, Mass., 1917) , 11, 31; Oscar and Mary Handlin, Commonwealth;
A Study of the Role of Government in the American Economy: Massachusetts,
1774-1861 (New York, 1947) , p. 187. There was little life insurance
underwrit-
ing in eighteen-century Europe or America.
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