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SUMMARY:Virginia Humanities Fellow Talk | The Insurance-Industrial Complex of Slavery
DESCRIPTION:The Library of Virginia will present “The 
 Insurance-Industrial Complex of Slavery\,” a virtual talk by Virginia 
 Humanities HBCU Fellow Michelle Oliver\, a financial genealogist\, 
 preservation strategist and public history researcher. Slavery in the 
 United States has most often been interpreted as a system of coerced labor 
 and racial domination\, but while these dimensions are essential\, they do 
 not fully account for the financial structures that sustained and 
 normalized human commodification. Oliver’s presentation introduces the 
 concept of the Insurance-Industrial Complex of Slavery to examine how 
 insurance markets\, public infrastructure and industrial enterprise 
 converged to transform enslaved lives into risk-managed financial 
 assets.\n\nDrawing on archival research conducted during Oliver’s 
 Virginia Humanities HBCU Fellowship and informed by more than two decades 
 of professional experience in financial systems and risk analysis\, this 
 study reexamines antebellum Virginia through the lens of insurance design. 
 Policies written on enslaved laborers working on canals\, railroads and 
 other industrial enterprises reveal that enslaved individuals were not only 
 exploited as laborers\, but also actuarialized within mechanisms of capital 
 protection and loss mitigation. Insurance contracts\, corporate charters 
 and state infrastructure documents demonstrate how financial institutions 
 integrated slavery into a broader economic architecture.\n\nBy reframing 
 slavery as a structured financial system rather than solely an agrarian 
 labor regime\, this presentation argues that capital markets were central 
 to its durability and expansion. In the context of the 250th anniversary of 
 U.S. independence\, examining the economic design of slavery is essential 
 to telling a more accurate and institutionally grounded history.\n\nOliver 
 is a Virginia Humanities HBCU Fellow in residence at the Library of 
 Virginia\, where her research centers on Virginia records and bridges 
 African American genealogy\, financial records\, business history\, 
 archival research and public humanities. She is the founder of 
 Genconcepts\, LLC\, a heritage research and preservation consulting firm\, 
 and serves as president of the Association for the Study of African 
 American Life and History\, Richmond\, Virginia Branch. Her broader work 
 includes African American cemetery preservation\, funeral home records\, 
 Reconstruction and post-Reconstruction history\, Black preservation and the 
 financial dimensions of slavery and memory.\n\nThis is a free\, virtual 
 event\, but registration is required. For more information\, contact 
 education@lva.virginia.gov
ORGANIZER;CN="Anne McCrery":MAILTO:anne.mccrery@lva.virginia.gov
CATEGORIES:Book Talk | Lecture, Featured
CONTACT;CN="Anne McCrery":MAILTO:anne.mccrery@lva.virginia.gov
STATUS:CONFIRMED
UID:LibCal-16948607
URL:https://lva-virginia.libcal.com/event/16948607
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