Tobacco Pipe Manufacturers and Distributors Found in U.S. Directories in the Library of Congress
Compiled by Paul Jung in 1991
The object of this book is to provide as much information as possible on pipe manufacturers and distributors in the United States based on entries found in regional and local directories. The primary intent of this research was to document clay tobacco pipemakers. However, listings in old directories as well as more modern directories generally do not always specify the type of pipe made or sold and category. Categories in the database have been slightly modified to make them more uniform without changing their meaning.
Many different kinds of directories were consulted. These included street directories, local and regional business directories, state and regional directories. Most manufacturers and distributors were listed in the "white pages" of city directories, but, to be listed in the "yellow or business pages" a fee was paid as it is today. Therefore, in many cases only one listing is found in the business page section but many entries in the white pages. Generally the single entry in the business section is the initial year for that company.
At the time initial research was begun at the Library of Congress, serious researchers were given access to directories in the stacks of the library although the library is a closed stack library. Without this access it would have been impossible to scan the large number of volumes that are covered here. Unfortunately, this type of research is no longer available due to past organized theft of material from the stacks.
The information contained in this book is presented in two ways. The first is an alphabetical listing of all pipe manufacturers or distributors within the range of dates, generally 1860-1930, found in the directories. Addresses listed may have changed over time so the second database should be consulted which is a more detailed list describing every entry and the references consulted. At the end of the book is a key to the abbreviations found in the databases.
There are limitations to the information found in this book. First, the Library of Congress does not have a complete set of city or regional directories or other books printed in the United States as most people think. Over the years volumes have been destroyed or stolen. Second, although the primary source of information targeted was business directories. But since businesses had to pay to be listed, only wealthy business owners could place entries every year in the business section. Also, there is usually about a year lag time for entries due to the time that it took to print each directory. Only entries listed under clay pipes were researched further into the “white” pages of the city directories. Additional research will be necessary to expand the time ranges for materials other than clay.
NOTE: We will be working on presenting this information in a more easily searchable format, meanwhile we have PDFs of different sorts of Paul's work available in PDFs bellow:
- Tobacco Pipe Manufacturers and Distributors Found in U.S. Directories in the Library of Congress, sorted by Company Name
- Tobacco Pipe Manufacturers and Distributors Found in U.S. Directories in the Library of Congress, sorted by City and Sate
- Summary of Tobacco Pipe Manufacturers and Distributors Found in U.S. Directories in the Library of Congress, sorted by Company Name
- Summary of Tobacco Pipe Manufacturers and Distributors Found in U.S. Directories in the Library of Congress, sorted by City and State
These PDFs can be searched once opened by holding down the "ctrl" key then pressing the "f" key.
The following is a list of abbreviations used in the database: