David Chan Smith

Talk: Digital Tools and the Clandestine World of Smuggling in Eighteenth-century Britain

This paper describes the creation and analysis of the first database of criminal prosecutions for smuggling in early modern Britain using the digital tools Transkribus and the business intelligence software Tableau.

Talk: Christian Ethics, Corporate Social Responsibility, and the Origins of Howard Bowen’s Social Responsibilities of the Businessman

Howard Bowen’s Social Responsibilities of the Businessman (1953) is a classic text in American corporate social responsibility. Yet little is known about its origins. This paper uses archival research to reveal the religious underpinnings of the book and its emergence from a collaborative and longstanding project of the National Council of Churches.

Talk: Earthly Cities: Early Common Law Corporate Ideas and the Case of Sutton's Hospital

This paper explores one of the most important common law cases in corporate law, Sutton's Hospital (1612), in which the corporation was described as soulless, and "invisible, immortal, & resteth only in intendment and consideration of the Law."