City Directories

CITY DIRECTORIES

CITY DIRECTORIES are books introduced in the eighteenth century compiling information on a city's vital statistics, advertising, and residential information. Philadelphia had the first of these directories in 1785 entitled Macpherson's Directory for the City and Suburbs of Philadelphia, which created a numbering system to identify all dwellings and properties in the city. Other cities followed, including New York City in 1786, Detroit in 1837, and Chicago in 1844. Published most often through private businesses or cooperatives, the directories helped city officials create a standard system of property identification that did not change until the early twentieth century, when cities created independent systems. Directories paid their expenses by selling advertising space, indicating their orientation towards other businessmen and not necessarily the public at-large. Generally these books were divided into business listings, a register of names in alphabetical order, and then residential information by street address. As the twentieth century progressed, directories began to gather increasingly detailed information about their advertisers and organized that data into specific categories. Instead of simply providing advertising space, directory publishers expanded into providing marketing and consumer data to businesses. By the late 1960s and early 1970s, the expense of bound volumes led publishers to utilize computers to develop marketing information for particular clients. These companies also moved quickly to take advantage of technological advancements, such as CD-ROMs instead of bound books, and the Internet's ability to provide tailored access and information to clients. Major directory companies today such as Experian, Equifax, infoUSA, and Acxiom deal with information related to direct marketing, telemarketing, sales planning, customer analysis, and credit reference.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Glaab, Charles N., and Theodore Brown. A History of Urban America. New York: Macmillan, 1983.

Matthew L. Daley