Investment Database of Early Modernity
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From the 17th century onward, early modernity saw the bumpy rise of the stock company. A form of organisation, seen as both innovative and suspicious alike, which allowed merchants to combine their funds to insure their ships against the dangers of their voyages. It also helped them to more successfully lobby for and defend monopolies on their trade, to finance colonial projects, the invention of new contraptions and machines, or the promotion of the high arts. For wider parts of society the investment in speculation with stocks soon became a staple means of increasing capital.
However, because the model required the advancement of money, often for products yet to be created, or other objectives not yet achived, and because the prices of the shares tended to fulctuate starkly upon being traded, many contemporaries expressed their skepiticsm about the long-term security of these financial instruments and often about the motvies of the projectors. These critics likely felt vindicated when prices eventually collapsed and ruined many of those invovled, as was the case in the Netherlands in 1637 or the United Kingdom in 1720, to name just two famous examples.
The dynamics and discussions these incidents gave rise to were present for centuries in societies all over Europe and beyond. They attracted the attention of many commentators, both contemporaries and descendants, such as Daniel Dafoe and Adam Smith. In fact, the discussion of financial instruments and markets, the good they might bring and the doom they can spell have hardly subsided and are topical still in the 21st century.
Unsuprisingly, historians and economist alike have chimed in and produced an eclectic range of research on this topic. This database aims to support such research by providing a tool to easily detect connections and relations between the persons and companies involved. It provides researches with the ability to uncover the range of investments of specific individuals, political officeholders or professional groups within seconds. Furthermore, it contains data sets on stock trades and marine insurance companies, allowing you to uncover cross-connections between and networks of investors, speculators, traders, brokers and policyholders.
Investments in, as well as petitions for and against the following companies are currently recorded:
For these companies, stock trades are searchable: