20 November 2025. ‘Private Business, Sovereign Power? Nineteenth-Century Corporations and the Public-Private Divide’ with Adriane Sanctis

Recent historiography of the 19th century has foregrounded the transformation of chartered companies during a waning imperial model, alongside the emergence of modern joint-stock and limited liability corporations. Yet other coeval corporate formations contributed to political power and economic relations in that century in ways that complicate conventional understandings of imperial control and dependency. The case of British-owned firms in newly-independent Brazil offers a compelling lens through which to trace the blurred lines of the public-private divide. These companies enjoyed extraordinary legal privileges under treaty provisions specifically addressed to 'British interests'. British nationals had cases involving their companies adjudicated by magistrates selected by their own community, while simultaneously functioning either as central investors in the country's infrastructure or as intermediaries managing Brazilian sovereign debt obligations to Britain. This case illuminates historical mechanisms of political dependence while challenging the long-standing, imagined boundaries between sovereign authority and private enterprise.

20 November 2025, 2-3 pm, MLS. Register here.

Image: Marie-Blanche Hennelle Fournier. The Madame B Album, 1831-1906. The Art Institute of Chicago