Fortune Classic

A New Way to Bet on Disasters (Fortune, 1997)

Insurers have begun to stake billions of dollars on computer forecasts of disaster losses. But what if Mother Nature knows something the computers don't?

Editor's note: Every week, Fortune.com publishes a story from our magazine archives. This week, we turn to a 1997 article about changes in the U.S. insurance industry following Hurricane Andrew, one of the costliest disasters in American history. Earlier this week, Superstorm Sandy ripped through the nation's East Coast, MORE

The Great Back-to-Work Movement (Fortune, 1956)

A new life pattern is emerging for the American woman: she works when young, married or not, and returns to a job in prodigious numbers in middle age. It adds up to a revolution in the character of the U.S. labor force. By Daniel Bell

From the drought, an opportunity (Fortune, 1935)

Editor's note: Every Sunday, Fortune publishes a favorite story from our magazine archives. This week, we turn to a feature from April 1935 that examines the ins and outs of America's early-20th century fishing trade, which was ripe for a major recovery in the wake of a 1934 drought that devastated meat production.

Corn Products (Fortune 1938)

Editor's note: Each week we publish a favorite story from Fortune's archives. We turn to a 1938 article looking at Corn Products, which at the time was the world's biggest corn refinery. The severity of the worst U.S. drought in 56 years has pushed crop prices up for months. And with corn being America's biggest crop, its scarcity will mean all that's made with corn will get more expensive and impact MORE

The hotels: Time to stop and rest (Fortune, 1963)

Editor's note: Each week we publish a favorite story from Fortune's archives. As the final weeks of summer approach, many will be taking that long-needed vacation. Some will fly to far off places. But equally as many, if perhaps not more, will hop in their cars for a road trip across the country. Somewhere between home and destination, they'll rest in one of the many motels dotted along the interstate. Ever wonder MORE

Sandy Weill: The Travelers chairman is happy (Fortune, 1997)

Sandy Weill is best known for building Citigroup into the "too big to fail" banking institution it was when the financial crisis began in 2007. In the late 1990s, he pushed to overturn the Glass-Steagall Act, which made it impossible for investment banking, commercial banking, and insurance services to be combined under one company. Weill has been mostly quiet since he left the bank in 2006, but last week he MORE

Alcohol: The Seamy Side (Fortune, 1933)

FORTUNE -- So much has been said about the evils of Prohibition that the evils of Drink have almost been forgotten. That Drink has ruined many a man, and brought destruction to many a child, and that it will continue to do so, none can deny. The painting opposite is a reminder from a dark past.

So much for the social evils of Drink. One is more conscious today of the MORE

Who is Publicker? (Fortune, 1933)

An idea from the Old South -- and a threat.

FORTUNE -- The gentlemen of the wood-pulp fiction business are very fond of writing stories based upon the thesis that a comet is headed for the earth. It is the most impossible of impossible premises; grant it, and anything can happen. Just now some people in Philadelphia are saying that a comet is headed for the whiskey business and the gentlemen MORE

A whiskey primer (Fortune, 1933)

FORTUNE -- All whiskey making begins with some sort of grain. Pure rye whiskey, as you might suppose, begins with rye: usually about 85 per cent. It was invented in the U.S. and is made and drunk mostly here. Bourbon whiskey starts with a majority of corn, a minority of some small grain-rye, barley, etc. It came to fame in Kentucky, but the drinking of it is not so local. MORE

Whiskey and America: A post-prohibition reunion (Fortune, 1933)

Newest U. S. business, oldest U. S. problem. The companies which will run it and the conditions under which it will be run. Such a subject needs a preface. This is it.