University of Milan, 11–12 September 2026

Despite increased female participation in economic education and greater access to financial markets, in the contemporary financial system women remain underrepresented in top positions, decision-making processes, and among major capital operators. This imbalance is not a recent phenomenon, but the continuation of long-term historical dynamics rooted in cultural, legal, and economic structures that have marginalized women in the financial sphere. The international conference Invisible Finance: Women and Money in History aims to examine the actual roles played by women in financial systems from the Middle Ages to the Twentieth Century. The conference lies at the crossroads between the fields of economic and financial history, gender history, legal history, and related disciplines.

Confined to the margins of high finance, large-scale trade, and public institutions, which have historically been dominated by male actors, women nevertheless acted as key figures within “informal” and shadow credit systems. In recent decades, historiography has highlighted women’s participation, particularly in more advanced economies, in stock markets and joint-stock companies, such as the Dutch East India Company (VOC) and the British East India Company (EIC). Despite these historiographical advances, significant chronological and geographical gaps remain in our understanding of how women engaged with money, credit, and financial institutions.
The conference seeks to further explore women’s participation in the various spheres of finance and credit, paying particular attention to the roles they occupied within these networks; their access to information, financial instruments, and expertise; the resources available to them and the ways in which these were used; and the legal contexts within which such practices took place.

The conference welcomes contributions addressing, though not limited to, the following themes:
• Women as financial intermediaries, creditors, and investors in the financial sector
• Women’s participation in formal and informal financial markets
• Women’s role in household finance and wealth management
• Legal and regulatory frameworks shaping women’s access to property, credit, and financial markets
• Comparative studies across different geographical and cultural contexts
• The role of women in enslavement-based economies and/or colonial contexts
• Social, cultural, and moral attitudes toward women’s economic activities
• The influence of religion and belief systems on women’s engagement in finance
• Religious institutions and women’s access to credit

The conference aims to:
• Promote research based on original archival sources and interdisciplinary approaches
• Foster dialogue among scholars from diverse historiographical traditions
• Expand the geographical and chronological scope of studies on women and finance
• Encourage comparative and long-term perspectives
• Discuss innovative methodologies for the study of women’s financial activities

The conference will be conducted in English. Scholars at any stage in their career are invited to submit a proposal in the form of an extended abstract (up to 350 words). Proposals must be submitted by 15 May 2026. Applicants will be notified of the outcome of the selection process by 15 June 2026.

Please send a copy of your proposal to all of the following:
Marcella Lorenzini, University of Milan, Marcella.lorenzini@unimi.it
Helen Paul, University of Southampton, H.J.Paul@soton.ac.uk
Matteo Pompermaier, University of Brescia, Matteo.pompermaier@unibs.it

Please include:
• Title of the proposal
• Abstract (max 350 words)
• Short biographical note (max. 100 words)
• Email subject line: Conference “Invisible Finance: Women and Money in History” 2026

The conference will be conducted in person. Further details regarding the final programme will be communicated to those whose papers are accepted.
iDEE Association offers four participation grants for non-tenured researchers (PhD candidates, research fellows, and postdoctoral scholars). The grants can be applied to travel, food, and lodging costs to a maximum of €300.