Life insurance, like other ubiquitous features of modern life, evolved in tandem with the growing application of scientific techniques over the last two centuries. In his dissertation, "The Science of Difference: Developing Tools for Discrimination in the American Life Insurance Industry, 1830-1930," Daniel B. Bouk brilliantly analyzes the technical foundations of the U.S. life insurance industry as they sought to rationalize their rates. The dissertation was completed in 2009 at Princeton University, and was supervised by Daniel T. Rodgers.
In a cogent historiographical introduction, Bouk uses American historian Daniel Boorstin’s 1973 work on the development of “statistical communities” as a foil, setting up his own analysis as a form of cultural history of science. By following tools--the invention and deployment of various mathematical instruments for specifying differences--Bouk is able to plumb the changing variety of ways to discriminate among the population and assess how risk was conceptualized and calculated across time.
Starting with the adoption of the British “life table” based on mortality data, American insurers employed actuaries to make ever-finer discriminations, first on policyholder age and then on a variety of criteria. Company mathematicians developed technical rationales to support higher rates applied to the South and West in the 1840s and 50s. After the Civil War and the depression of the 1870s, companies started insuring wageworkers and used race as a variable in calculating mortality risk. When race classification was made illegal around the turn of the century, companies turned to the catchall term “impairment” to encompass a wide assortment of conditions that had some relation to longevity. Company medical doctors were key players in the emergence of this regime. Bouk closes his analysis with reflections on the co-evolution of the insurance industry and the public health infrastructure in the United States.
Bouk’s close reading of the esoteric details of rate calculations supports his discussion of his large theme: discrimination had important consequences in a host of arenas affecting individuals and families. Risk class determined whether one could purchase life insurance and at what economic cost. Because insurance could be used as a form of collateral, it affected access to credit. With death benefits, it facilitated cross-generational transfer of wealth. These subthemes and many others are handled with attention to empirical detail and placed within a rich cultural context.
The FHHS Dissertation Prize Committee was faced with a wealth of riches in the nominated dissertations. Daniel Bouk’s The Science of Difference rose to the top on the basis of its elegant conception, articulate argument, robust use of sources, and graceful writing style. The committee welcomes a fresh voice in the history of the human sciences and congratulates Daniel Bouk on a receiving this signal honor from our community of interest.
2010 FHHS Dissertation Prize Committee: James H. Capshew (chair), Leila Zenderland, Richard Keller