The Emergence of the American Corporation: The New England Example

This project explores the legal and historical parameters of the corporation as it developed in New England during the English colonial period through the initial years of the new republic. Gillis seeks to identify certain thematic developments relating to the incorporation, operation and regulation of such corporations, whether municipal, charitable, religious, educational or commercial. She will compare this New England corporate experience, as well as those of Virginia, New York and Pennsylvania, with their English counterpart to understand the degree to which the pre-modern American corporation was a unique legal creature rather than a mere offspring of its English corporate parent.