The only collection of its kind, American Business: Mercantile Newspapers provides statistics-laden content from nearly 500 papers in a genre spawned by the rapid growth of shipping and international trade. Targeting wealthy merchants, professionals, and the educated elite, mercantile papers often were voluminous with a very large format, making production and subscription expensive.  Much of the included information is unavailable elsewhere.

Goldmine of business data and non-partisan reporting
Most papers in this collection, published between 1783 and 1900, covered business and general news in great detail. Large amounts of numerical and statistical data are found within, including commodities prices, retail prices, stock market quotes, labor rates, insurance rates, shipping tonnage and costs, railroad schedules and rates, industrial output figures, demographic data and immigration statistics. In addition, the general news coverage found in mercantile papers tended to be colored by its editors’ broad support of capitalism and not by allegiance to particular political parties or leaders.

Topics covered include commerce, finance, invention, material history, the environment, immigration, slavery and diaspora, railroads, banking, frontier development and more. Many titles in American Business: Mercantile Newspapers specialized in a single field such as shipping, mining, timber, railways, insurance, engineering or publishing. Others reported on particular professions such as law, finance, advertising or labor relations.

Broad coverage from across the U.S.
Papers in this collection span more than 40 states, with its largest representations from Alabama, California, Colorado, Illinois, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, Ohio and Pennsylvania. Key titles include Chicago Railway Review (Chicago, IL), Nome Gold Digger (Nome, Alaska), San Francisco Prices Current (San Francisco, CA), St. Louis Weekly Market Reporter (St. Louis, MO), New Orleans Commercial Bulletin (New Orleans, LA), Cincinnati Price Current (Cincinnati, OH), Miner’s Journal & Pottsville General Advertiser (Pottsville, PA), United States Economist, & Dry Goods Reporter (New York, NY), Tacoma Commerce (Tacoma, WA), Galveston News Price Current (Galveston, TX) and others. 

Global trade boom brings international news
Because of the large and growing role that shipping and foreign trade played in the 19th-century U.S. economy, the titles in Mercantile Newspapers provide far broader international coverage than most general-interest newspapers of the time. Beyond American shores, a large number of accounts from South America, the Caribbean, Europe and Asia (especially India and China) are found within these papers.

Other subject-specific newspaper collections
American Business: Mercantile Newspapers is part of a new group of collections designed to meet targeted teaching and research needs. The other subject-specific collections include American Business: Agricultural Newspapers, American Gazettes: Newspapers of Record, American Politics: Campaign Newspapers and American Religion: Denominational Newspapers.