Historical company research usually requires pulling information from multiple sources.  Sometimes the availability of published business information is limited.  This is especially true when researching small, private companies.  A directory may be one of the few sources that publishes a company’s information.  For this reason, directories are a great place to begin researching the history of a company.  In this blog post, we’ll look at three types of directories available at the New Jersey State Library that can be used to find historical information on New Jersey businesses.

NJ Business and Industrial Directories

Within our Jerseyana collection there are hundreds of NJ business and industrial directories dating from the late nineteenth century to the present.  These directories usually index companies alphabetically, geographically, and by industry.

The information included in directory listings can vary by publisher and year.  However, they generally include a business’s name, location, industry, and leadership.  They may also indicate when a company was established, as well as its approximate size, number of employees, or sales revenue.

Below are the listings for Radium Luminous Material Corp. in the 1918 Industrial Directory of New Jersey.  Radium Luminous Material Corp., later the U.S. Radium Company, became notorious for the hazardous effects its radioluminescent paint had on its female employees, known as “Radium Girls”.

Later editions of the Industrial Directory of New Jersey provide greater detail, as shown in this listing for Ce De Inc., makers of Smarties candies, from 1956.  This listing not only shows their location in Bloomfield, NJ, but also their telephone number, number of employees by gender, industry classification, and executive board members.

For more information on the business and industrial directories available at the New Jersey State Library, see NJSL’s New Jersey Industrial, Manufacturer, and Business Directories.

NJ Phonefiche Telephone Directories

In two small drawers on Level 4 of the New Jersey State Library lives a wealth of historical business information.  These drawers contain our NJ Phonefiche collection, made up of almost two-thousand microfiched yellow and white pages for New Jersey from 1976-2005.

• Want to verify the existence of a restaurant in Toms River, NJ in 1989?
• Looking to track the location of a dry-cleaning business in Newark, NJ in the 1990s?
• Need to find a list of physicians operating in and around Pompton Lakes, NJ in 2002?

These are just a few questions that our Phonefiche collection can help answer.

Most telephone directories are published by area code.  For this reason, an individual directory can contain listings for multiple municipalities.  For a full list of our Phonefiche telephone directories and instructions on how to find a directory for a specific NJ location, see our Phonefiche Telephone Directories at the New Jersey State Library guide.

Companies are listed in yellow pages by industry and in white pages alphabetically by name.  Yellow pages also contain advertisements that can provide additional company information.  For example, the following advertisement from the 1997 Burlington County Area Yellow Pages indicates that Forrest Launderers & Cleaners was established in 1880 and provides details about their services.

NJ City Directories

Looking for information on a company from before 1976?  The New Jersey State Library has an extensive collection of New Jersey city directories, both in print and on microfilm, dating from 1835-1988.  For a full list of our NJ city directories and where to find them, see our New Jersey City Directories at the New Jersey State Library index.

While the contents of city directories can vary by year and publisher, most contain a business section that lists companies by industry.  Businesses can also appear in the alphabetical index, usually in bold face to distinguish them from individual residents.  City directories commonly include a company’s name, address, proprietor, and industry.   Some city directories also have advertisements for local businesses that provide images and other company information, such as the following image and listing for the Ocean Crest Hotel in Wildwood Crest, NJ.

Visit our Business & Company Research guide for more information on historical company research.