New York City Business Records: A Plan for Their Preservation

Extract

The New York Metropolitan area contains a greater volume of important business records than any similar section of the United States; yet up to some three years ago little had been done by the historical profession to encourage the preservation of the records for scholarly use. Some New York business records have been deposited from time to time in the local university libraries, the New York Historical Society, the Museum of the City of New York, and the Public Library, where the former Director, H. M. Lydenberg, made occasional efforts in this direction. Through members of the Business Historical Society, and others, the attention of the Baker Library had sometimes been directed to New York records; but all of these efforts together have barely ruffled the surface of the vast mass of papers reposing in vaults, private libraries, and storage warehouses.