Wisconsin Gazetteers and Business Directories
This article originally appeared in Exchange,
a newsletter published by the Wisconsin Historical
Society.
(Volume 32, Number 1, Winter 1990) It is
the 10th in a series of articles titled Researching
Community History. The series highlights
the Society's resources available to local
historians. It was written by Tom McKay,
retired local history coordinator for the
Wisconsin Historical Society.
The 19th-century expansion of the United States
across an entire continent intertwined widening
geographical boundaries with business opportunities.
America's businesses could find new markets
in recent settlements and investment possibilities
in growing communities. Both to serve and profit
from a growing economy, a variety of publishers
became engaged in another new enterprise, producing
state gazetteers and business directories.
These gazetteers and directories were about
business and for business. The ambitious volumes
attempted to list all active businesses in
a state as well as compiling data about communities
throughout the state that would be useful to
business interests. Because of their goal of
gathering information about all businesses
and all communities, these written companions
for the 19th-century entrepreneur have
become helpful sources for today's local historians.
The earliest Wisconsin state business directory
in the collection of the Wisconsin Historical
Society dates to 1857. Smith, DuMoulin & Company,
compiler of the directory, identified itself
on the title page as a publisher of "Western
State and City Directories." The preface to
the volume notes that the publisher was a Wisconsin
company and that the Wisconsin directory represented
its first attempt at such an enterprise. A
272-page listing of companies and self-employed
individuals engaged in businesses and professions
comprises the bulk of the publication. The
directory organizes its entries under classifications
arranged alphabetically from accoucheurs to
Yankee notions dealers. Under the heading for
each classification the names of businesses
and individuals appear by city or town, again
arranged alphabetically. The directory includes
more than 350 classifications of businesses
and professionals. Scanning each classification
to identify companies or individuals active
in a particular community can be a time consuming
task but may produce some surprising results.
For example, researchers from Sheboygan, Milwaukee
and Manitowoc might expect to find the shipbuilders
listed for their communities, but that classification
also has entries from communities such as Black
Earth, Horicon, Wautoma and Mauston.
Smith, DuMoulin & Company supplemented
its business listing with other pertinent information.
One section presents brief profiles of state
colleges, universities and academic institutions
with rosters of their faculties. The publication
includes a statewide list of notaries public
and offers financial information on banks and
insurance companies based in Wisconsin. Other
tables concern secret societies, magazines,
and the annual conventions or conferences of
religious denominations. Interspersed throughout
the directory are more than 200 display advertisements
for individual businesses.
An 1865 directory published by George W. Hawes presents its business listings in two formats. Each format included all of the business information gathered statewide by the publisher. One list is arranged alphabetically by the classification of the business. However, the directory also organized its data into a second listing arranged by communities. Rather than scanning the directory classification by classification, a researcher from West Bend, for example, can turn to an entry under that community's name and find a listing of 27 businesses.
The publishers of Wisconsin business directories
who followed Hawes did not immediately adopt
his format. In 1876 a directory compiled by
Murphy and Company did return to the dual listings,
one organized by business classification and
the other by community. From that time until
1927, a Wisconsin State Gazetteer and Business
Directory appeared biennially. Although
compiled by several different publishers, each
of these directories used the format of two
listings. The listing organized by community
also featured a brief synopsis of information
about each of the communities that might be
useful to business people. This synopsis included
postal station status, railroad and telegraph
connections, and, later, telephone service.
The community listings included towns of virtually
any size, but county seats and large communities
received descriptions with additional detail.
Throughout the period of gazetteer and directory
production, the publications continued to print
display advertisements.
While state business directories gathered
an impressive array of data, they did not produce
a definitive list of businesses in Wisconsin.
They existed as private, commercial activities
and depended upon the success of their own
surveys of business. These surveys did not
produce results as inclusive as the occupations
listed in the original returns of government
census schedules, and even the completeness
of the business directories themselves varied
from publisher to publisher. Nonetheless, researchers
can find a variety of uses for the directories.
Many communities experienced rapid growth in
the 10-year intervals between federal censuses.
The business directories may document the establishment
or growth of particular businesses or industries
during these periods. The listings by community
demonstrate the core business activities that
could be expected in even the smallest settlements
and how these may have changed over a 50-year
time span.
Comparative reading of state business directories
may help establish a tenor of the times. Comparisons
of street addresses for different types of
business establishments may reveal how the
business community organized itself. For example,
an 1865 listing for Columbus shows that Dr.
E. Churchill, resident dentist, located his
office on the second floor above John Swarthout's
drug store. The directories may also remind
local historians that 19th-century business
was not a single, unbroken line of economic
success. Of the state's 12 manufacturers
of threshing machines listed in the 1857 business
directory, only J. I. Case was reported in
business 20 years later. An 1857 entry
for Miss Perkins of Rural as a rag carpet weaver
gives some sense of the options open for an
unmarried woman to earn income in a small town.
Researchers will find Wisconsin gazetteers
and business directories in the Society's library.
The original volumes for many of the years
may be used in the library but do not circulate.
The Society has microfilmed these publications,
and the microfilms are available for use in
local communities through interlibrary loan. Although limited to the information that could be produced by the energy of their compilers and respondents, the Wisconsin gazetteers and business directories contain yet another significant slice of historical data about virtually every community in the state.
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