On Tuesday, October 25, Professor Eric Hilt of Wellesley College’s Department of Economics, will speak on "Wall Street and the Rise of the Corporation in New York: 1791-1826" in Butler Library, room 523 at 6:30pm.

The lecture will focus on the early decades of the 19th century, when business corporations proliferated throughout New York City, and ordinary citizens invested in corporate stock at an increasing rate.  During this time, new enterprises revolutionized business and finance in the city, and were often promoted by Wall Street speculators. Hilt will describe the legal and political struggles to protect small investors that followed in the wake of scandals.

Hilt is a Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research and a Columbia alumni. He received his Ph.D. in Economics from Columbis in 2002. His work focuses on the economic, business, and financial history of the United States, and has appeared in such journals as The Journal of Law and Economics, The Journal of Economic History, and Business History Review. In 2009, he received both the Arthur Cole Prize for the best paper in the Journal of Economic History, and the Explorations Prize for the best paper in the journal Explorations in Economic History. He is currently a visiting fellow at the Russell Sage Foundation in New York.