New Additions to NCCHP's Digital Archives Site!

The wonderful people at the Boston Public Library, in conjunction with the Digital Commonwealth, Internet Archives, and Digital Public Library of America projects, have added an amazing EIGHTY-PLUS industrial trade catalogs from the NCCHP archives to our Digital Archives page.

These catalogs sat in a nailed-shut wooden crate stored at the Noble & Cooley facility on Water Street. Most date to the late 19th century. In many instances they may be the only remaining copies in the world. Now they are available to anyone via internet. And the best news, it is all at no cost to NCCHP.

Matt Jones opens the mystery crate, which turned out to contain well over 100 industrial trade catalogs
from the late 19th and early 20th century (NCCHP photo)

The catalogs cover everything from large lathes and presses, to building architectural details such as finials, down to leather hides, twine and samples of roofing material. Many catalogs feature detailed renderings of the manufacturing plants, complete with horses, carriages, wagons and carts in the streets. Then in the early 20th century the occasional "horseless carriage" was added to the picture. As always, you can click on any image for a larger version:

 

As historical reference material the catalogs will be invaluable to researchers.

Here's a link to the full content. Prepare to be amazed! CLICK HERE When you get to the site, click on the catalog you want to view and you'll be able to flip through all the pages of the catalog.

Thanks to Jake Sadow, Nichole Shea and the rest of the team at the Boston Public Library for making this a reality. And we still have more to add to the site so stay tuned to this fascinating NCCHP project.