What Are Trade Directories .02.
Most directories contain information about the history and geography of an area .
But it is the wealth of detail concerning the people who inhabit the directories' pages which attract most of today's readers. The ordinary men and women of a community rarely figure in these directories . Directories were put together by individuals for commercial purposes at almost random intervals during the late 18th and 19th centuries. There must always be a question mark over the inclusion or exclusion of information. We shall never know the precise relationship between an entry in the directory, say of a business, and the payment to the author of the directory for a subscription for that publication.