1868 chicago city directory offers insight into a city before the great conflagration of 1871

the first city directory– which compiles the names, addresses, occupations, and other important demographic information about a given city– is believed to have been commissioned in london by the office of the exchequer in 1588. it enabled the mayor of london to better gauge the size of his city, the wealth of its inhabitants, and the likelihood of crises like famine or revolt. three quarters of a century later, in 1665, the first directory for the city of new york was published by a british government intent on solidifying rule over the recently colonized city.

whatever its original intentions, this document preceded the first united states census by over a century, making it– and all other directories like it– an invaluable resource for american historians. even when studying periods of american history after 1790, the scholar finds directories to be an essential resource. census data, especially in frontier areas like chicago, was less than reliable and the brevity of the questionnaire (there were only fourteen questions in 1860) meant that many tantalizing historical details were omitted from the record.

directories were often written with more local and specific goals than the census; the historian reading them today can better feel the textures of everyday life in the 19^th century through the advertisements, maps, public disclosures of wealth, and more in-depth polling strategies.  in the preface to his 1866 business directory, john w. bailey boasts that “this vast array of numbers in every department of trade sufficiently indicates the metropolitan character of chicago, and is evidence of its growth and capability to supply the immense field of enterprise lying before it.”

the experience of this vigorous growth can be seen most evidently in directories, which were typically updated annually. between the 1850 and the 1860 census, chicago’s population expanded from 29,963 to 112,172 and had exploded to 298,977 by 1870.  but, since the census only recorded information at those three points, it isn’t able to give much insight into actual, everyday life in chicago during those two decades of unprecedented growth.

i was particularly excited to get my hands on an all original 1868 copy of bailey & edwards’ annual city of chicago directory, filled with several hundred pages of residents, streets, businesses, advertisements, maps, and various institutions as they existed prior to the great chicago fire of 1871. the collaboration between richard edwards– at the time, the most eminent publisher of maps, gazettes, and directories in the western states– and john w. bailey, the city’s most celebrated canvasser, was the "official directory" of chicago throughout the 1860's.  the edwards & co. directories were by far the most comprehensive directory from the time and, in the preface, edwards even taunts his competitors as having “utterly and totally failed in giving satisfaction to the community” with their “bogus” directories.

the extensive work done by edwards and his company, alongside a plethora of lithographs by edward mendel, makes this work a peerless firsthand account of pre-fire chicago.  full page advertisements for architects and superintendents provide beautifully detailed images, perhaps the only images, of architectural structures destroyed long ago. the directory itself lists over a thousand businesses, complete with addresses and organized by profession, which gives us an unprecedented look at the urban makeup of a city that was nearly wiped away by the great chicago fire of 1871.

the edwards & company pre-fire chicago directory will make for a great addition to my ever-expanding research library, filled with period catalogs, city directories, photographs, trade journals, blueprints, postcards and other ephemera that greatly assists in enriching the narratives assigned to countless blog posts.