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Sharon Murphy

Providence College, Professor of History
Twitter
19th c. US, Financial history, Slavery, Banking, Insurance
Women in Business History

Sharon Ann Murphy is a professor of history and department chair at Providence College. Her latest book, Banking on Slavery: Financing Southern Expansion in the Antebellum United States was published in 2023 with Chicago University Press. It investigates the critical role played by southern commercial banks in supporting and promoting the system of slavery on the southern frontier, particularly through the use of enslaved lives as loan collateral. She is also the author of Investing in Life: Insurance in Antebellum America, winner of the 2012 Hagley Prize for the best book in business history, and Other People’s Money: How Banking Worked in the Early American Republic. She has been an associate editor of Enterprise and Society: The International Journal of Business History since 2011. 

Recent Presentations at BHC Annual Meetings
Service to the BHC
Past-President on Board 2025 - 2026
Budget Committee 2022 - 2026 [Chair 2023 - 2024]
Associate Editor of Enterprise & Society 2023 - 2026
Nominating Committee 2024 - 2025 [Chair 2024 - 2025]
Past President 2024 - 2025
Henry Kaufman Financial History Fellowship Program 2023 - 2024
Henry Kaufman Financial History Fellowship Program 2023 - 2024
Program Committee 2023 - 2024
President 2023 - 2024
Executive Committee 2022 - 2024
President-Elect 2022 - 2023
Associate Editor of Enterprise & Society 2015 - 2022
Hagley Book Prize Committee 2020 - 2021
Nominating Committee 2018 - 2020
Hagley Book Prize Committee 2017 - 2018
Associate Editor of Enterprise & Society 2011 - 2015
Electronic Media Oversight Committee 2010 - 2013 [Chair 2012 - 2013]
Board of Trustees 2010 - 2013
Kerr Prize Committee 2009 - 2012 [Chair 2010 - 2011]
Emerging Scholars Committee 2008 - 2011

Prizes and Grants from the BHC
Hagley Prize in Business History, 2012
K. Austin Kerr Prize, 2005
Harold F. Williamson Prize, 2020
Ralph Gomory Prize, 2024

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